81 percent of Czechs would defend their homeland if attacked, poll shows
According to a 2025 survey published by GLOBSEC, Czechia is one of the countries in central and eastern Europe where most people would defend their homeland in the event of a foreign attack. But why? I spoke with Director for Policy and Programming at GLOBSEC Dominika Hajdu to delve into this research and what it says about Czechs.
In Czechia, up to 81 percent of respondents said they would defend their country if it were attacked. Only Poland (84 percent) recorded a better result. In Slovakia, on the other hand, only 49 percent of people would go to fight for their own country, according to the data published by the Slovak NGO, GLOBSEC, titled “GLOBSEC Trends 2025: Ready for a New Era?” I asked one of the authors of the publication, Dominika Hajdu, why that is the case:
“I would say the divergence is partially linked to a healthy sense of patriotism, which I believe is stronger in the Czech Republic. That’s because Czech society has been able to create key narratives that are deeply embedded in the culture that can contribute to a sense of pride in the country. For example, there is the Prague Spring and the democratic tradition of Václav Havel. I think Czechs have been able to build a stronger connection with their country's history and why they are proud of their history, much better than the Slovaks have. This, in turn, translates into a greater willingness to defend the country.”
In Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, a majority of people think that providing military support to Ukraine, in light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is prolonging the war. In Czechia, 45 percent of people polled have this view.
Of these countries, it’s only in Slovakia that a majority (52 percent) of the population believe that Ukraine should give up part of its territory in exchange for peace. 38 percent of Czechs hold the same opinion.
In much of the data, Czechs and Slovaks are at opposite ends of the spectrum, except for their views on whether Ukraine’s integration with the EU would benefit central and eastern European countries economically. Less than half of the people polled believed that Ukraine's possible EU membership would benefit their country economically. Hajdu explains why some might frown upon Ukraine’s economic integration with the bloc:
“I think the reasons for this are linked to the fact that there isn’t much discussion about the potential economic benefits to the EU, especially to neighboring countries like those bordering Ukraine.
“On the contrary, there have been protests related to Ukrainian grain imports, with farmers protesting at the Polish and Slovak borders, for example. I believe these protests have contributed to the notion that Ukrainian membership in the EU wouldn’t benefit these countries. We also see this in responses to a question asking whether respondents believe cheap Ukrainian products are hurting European farmers. This question was specifically designed to measure the impact of the farmers' protests, and we found that in most countries in the region—actually, all of the countries we polled, except for the Baltic states—a majority agreed that Ukrainian products are harming European farmers.”
More than half of Czechs consider Russia and China a security threat. In Slovakia, Russia is considered a threat by half of the population, while China is considered a threat by only a third. In Czechia, only a third of people believe in disinformation and conspiracies, whereas in some other countries, more than half of the population holds such beliefs.
In each of the countries surveyed, 1,000 respondents were contacted during February and March of this year. The sample size reflects the demographic composition of the population.
