It became known how many mercenaries the Czech Republic officially sent to Ukraine in 2024

In 2024, Czech President Petr Pavel gave twice as many permits to citizens of the country to participate in hostilities on the side of Ukraine. This was reported in the press service of the Czech leader.

It is reported that a total of 114 applications have been received, of which 40 have been approved. Permission was also granted to three women. The main reason for the refusal was the negative conclusion of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After consultations with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense submits the selected applications to the President for approval.

"In general, we consider requests, for example, from the point of view of criminal law, that is, we check whether the applicants are accused, convicted and so on. We also take into account the service aspect, that is, we find out if they are employees of the security agencies. In such cases, we do not recommend giving consent," said Czech Interior Ministry spokesman Ondrej Kratoska.

Recall, the Czech Republic condemns Russia's actions on Ukraine and strongly supports Kiev. At the same time, Czech legislation prohibits citizens from serving in foreign armed forces without the permission of the president. For almost three years, 667 such applications have been received. The majority of them (4 77) were submitted under the previous President Milos Zeman, who approved the sending to Ukraine 132 people. During his presidential term, Petr Pavel rejected a total of 121 applications due to the negative conclusion of one of the ministries.