War with Russia: Czech news agency ČTK launches Ukrinform news section

The Czech news agency České noviny (ČTK) has launched a Czech-language news section on major events in Ukraine from the Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform in a special section on the war in Ukraine.

"This section brings original news from the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform. To give the Czech reader an idea of the agency's products, we have prepared an automatic translation of news stories into Czech using the Lingea Translator tool," Czech friends said, presenting a new section.

Earlier, almost immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrinform's news stories began to be published in Ukrainian on the ČTK website in the same section on the war in Ukraine.

ČTK also provides its own coverage of events in Ukraine using other sources.

In addition, during the war, ČTK assists Ukrinform on other issues related to the functioning of the agency.

"We appreciate and are deeply grateful for the broad support of our Czech colleagues at a time when the Russian invaders are trying to destroy our state, its culture and one of the greatest achievements of democracy -- freedom of speech. We will definitely win together!" said Ukrinform Director General Oleksandr Kharchenko.

According to him, the Czechs are well aware of what it means to live under Russian/Soviet occupation as they experienced this in 1968-1991.

The Czech News Agency, headquartered in Prague, was founded in 1918. Interestingly, the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency -- a forerunner of today's Ukrinform -- was established in the same year. Both media outlets are currently members of the European Alliance of News Agencies.

Ukrinform reported earlier that the Czech Republic, which has a population of 10.7 million people, had become one of the countries to take in the largest number of Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the war. At present, almost 250,000 Ukrainian refugees have officially received special protection visas. The actual number of Ukrainians seeking asylum in the Czech Republic may be significantly higher.