Government aid operation to expats in Ukraine called off

The Czech government will not be providing extensive assistance to Czech expatriates in Ukraine, some of whom have asked to be repatriated to their old homeland for security reasons. Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek said after Monday’s meeting of the Security Council that a team of government experts sent to the region to assess the security situation had not found grounds which would justify a large-scale aid operation or speedy repatriation. The reasons behind the requests for repatriation are reported to have been largely of a social and economic character, Mr. Zaorálek said. A planned visit to the Czech expat community in western Ukraine by the Foreign Ministry’s special commissioner for Czech expatriates Karel Kuhnl has likewise been scrapped.