News

President Petr Pavel attended the final of a soccer tournament for Romany youths at Prague’s Strahov Stadium on Friday in order to express support for the players. In November last year some of the Romany teenagers were the subject of racist abuse from hardcore Baník Ostrava fans at a train station in an incident that was widely reported.

The 12-team finals of the tournament – created by the club Mongaguá – were held with the support of the Czech Football Association for the first time this year.

Expenditure on humanitarian benefits for Ukrainian refugees in Czechia, as well as the number of those receiving them, is falling, according to data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs cited by the Czech News Agency on Saturday.

In the first half of this year, employment offices provided refugee households with CZK 3.63 billion, around CZK 1 billion less than in the same period in 2025. In June, 36,900 benefits were paid out, some 9,000 fewer than in the same month last year.

Officials also say that the number of Ukrainians employed in Czechia is rising.

Some 397,100 people from Ukraine with temporary protection were staying in the Czech Republic as of midnight on Sunday, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

At Ukraine’s request, Czechia and other EU states have ceased granting protection to men who have not fulfilled their military service obligations.

The Prague Municipal Court has confirmed that Belarusian journalist Natalia Sudlianková, who worked in the Czech Republic for many years, was an influential agent of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, and actively spread Russian propaganda.

Sudlianková, who had previously been granted asylum in Czechia, was placed on the government’s sanctions list in April 2025 and forced to leave the country. The court rejected her lawsuit against the decision, drawing also on classified information, iRozhlas reported Friday.

According to the ruling, Sudlianková was instructed and paid by a GRU officer and an employee of USM Holding, founded by sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov. She secretly worked in the interests of Russian organisations, including the GRU, the Foundation for the Protection and Support of the Rights of Compatriots Abroad and the Immortal Regiment of Russia.

Her activities were uncovered by the Security Information Service, which prompted the government to sanction both Sudlianková and her alleged liaison officer Alexei Shavrov. Both were ordered to leave Czechia within 30 days.

Parts of Bohemia and western Moravia could be hit by further severe thunderstorms on Friday afternoon and overnight into Saturday, with wind gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour and rainfall of up to 70 millimetres, which could bring on flash floods in places, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said.

The high-level warning is in effect from 4 p.m. Friday for a belt stretching from South Bohemia through the Central Bohemian Region and Vysočina to the Pardubice and Hradec Králové regions and parts of the Liberec Region.