Here in Bermuda, the war that has been waged by Russia against Ukraine since February 24, 2022, and related events such as fundraisers were initially covered quite well. However, as the war dragged on for weeks and then months, current news, which is usually dominated by local events and those in the West, mainly the United States and Britain, went back to normal.

Nowadays, we hear very little about what goes on in Ukraine. So much so that at times, it may seem as if the war has stopped. But the war is raging on and is still a source of much anxiety and stress for many, especially those of us who are from Central and Eastern European countries. As a Czech citizen, now living in Bermuda, I can still recall the Russian occupation up until the age of 12 when the Velvet Revolution ended Communist rule.

What Czechs and Ukrainians share? Language and history

Czechs and Ukrainians have quite a few things in common, including language and history — and Bermuda, although the number of Czechs and Ukrainians here is not high.

Our languages, Ukrainian and Czech respectively, share the same root. Both are Slavic languages, although Ukrainian is East Slavic and Czech is a West Slavic language. Ukrainian uses a form of the Cyrillic alphabet, whereas Czech uses the Latin script. At different points in our history, Czechs and Ukrainians were made to learn Russian at school — despite a much greater proximity between Russian and Ukrainian, the two languages are not identical — and both detest and refuse to speak it for similar reasons, some of which I outline below.

Unlike the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which in 1922 became a founding member of Soviet Russia — or the Soviet Union — the western part of Ukraine, the so-called Transcarpathia, joined the newly formed democratic Czechoslovakia (1918) voluntarily in 1919 under the official name of Subcarpathian Ruthenia. It remained part of Czechoslovakia until October/November 1938, just a few weeks after the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938 when Germany, Britain, France and Italy permitted the annexation of western Czechoslovakia, the so-called Sudetenland.

Ukraine was part of the USSR, under Moscow’s direct control until 1991 when it declared its independence. Although Czechoslovakia was never part of the USSR, from the communist coup d’état in February 1948, it had been part of the Eastern Bloc. In 1968, Czechoslovakia experienced a period of political liberalisation, known as the Prague Spring and associated with the progressive leader and reformist Alexander Dubcek. Assisted by other Warsaw Pact countries, the Soviet Union responded through a violent invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. The Russian army was present in Czechoslovakia until 1991. Responding to the events related to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, Czechoslovakia peacefully disposed of its communist government during the Velvet Revolution begun on November 17, 1989.

Reliving the trauma

This cultural and historical proximity between the Ukrainians and the Czechs has made it even more painful to watch the atrocities, including targeting and mass murders of Ukrainian civilians, women and children that have been committed by the Russian army under the direct command of Putin over the past seven months. When Russia launched its war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, I was really upset and anxious. My immediate thought was that if Vladimir Putin has the nerve to invade Ukraine, he might also plan on invading the Czech Republic. This was an overwhelmingly frightening prospect.

All of a sudden, my recollections of what it was like during communism came back. I remembered the absence of freedom and the sense of entrapment I felt as a child, especially at the sight of Russian soldiers and their uniforms, including their very specific soldier hats whose tops were very, very broad when we were in the vicinity of the Russian army headquarters near our home. I also recalled what my mother told me about the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. She was awoken by what seemed like an earthquake. She panicked and turned on the radio. Then she realised that it wasn’t an earthquake but thousands of Russian tanks that caused the earth to shiver. The subsequent 21 years of the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia saw a tightening of the communist rule and the absolute closing of borders with the West, also referred to as “normalisation”.

On February 25, the second day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I called my mum who still lives in the Czech Republic. I knew that the events would be triggering for her and making her to relive the trauma that she experienced as someone who, as a professional violinist at the tender age of 20, first tasted a semblance of freedom during the Prague Spring, only for it to be crushed by the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The subsequent 21 years of the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia shattered all her dreams and ruined her life — my mum was almost 42 at the time of the Velvet Revolution. I remember her crying and saying, “I never thought I would live to see this day”, while we were watching the November 1989 demonstrations, led by the late Vaclav Havel, live on TV. Havel would later become the first democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia, and then president of the Czech Republic in 1993.

Latest developments as seen from Bermuda

The paralysing fear and panic that Russia may escalate its warfare beyond the borders of Ukraine became even more real on September 30, 2022, when Putin forcibly annexed four Ukrainian territories. Very recently, I saw a video in which the so-called “head” of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, read a poem, a part of which went like this: “I see Prague and Warsaw, Budapest and Bucharest. It’s the Russian state...”

Whether we, Czechs and Ukrainians in Bermuda, are 6.6 thousand kilometres away, in Ukraine or in the Czech Republic, since February we all have been afraid that the suffering, pain and death that Putin has been inflicting on Ukraine and Ukrainians will eventually spread to the nearby countries, including the Czech Republic, as it seems like the previously unthinkable, whether it is escalation of warfare beyond Ukraine’s borders or the threat a third world war — and a nuclear one at that — is now becoming a real possibility.

It is hard to fathom what the solution is or should be, but it is clear that we cannot have another Munich agreement, this time allowing Russia to forcibly seize Ukrainian or other territories. Instead, Putin must be faced in the strongest possible military and other terms, including sanctions. Because, at the end of the day, is anywhere in the world safe if Putin’s war and the Russian occupation continue?

• Lucie Fremlova, PhD is a sociologist and a resident of Bermuda