Freedom Matters More Than Peace: Czech Commentator on the Reality of War in Ukraine

Czech publicist and academic Petr Hlaváček visited Ukraine in late November 2025 — Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. In his commentary for Forum24, he counters pro-Russian narratives about a demoralised army and describes the reality he witnessed with his own eyes.

Pro-Russian voices like to spread the idea that the Ukrainian army is demoralised and the front lines are on the verge of collapse. After spending time in Ukraine in November 2025, Hlaváček saw a completely different reality. At railway stations in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil, uniformed soldiers were heading back to the front voluntarily, on their own, by ordinary civilian trains.

Discipline and Motivation — Not Propaganda

On the train from Lviv to Ivano-Frankivsk, the author travelled with a soldier who had three days of leave. He was calling his wife, looking forward to dinner with her, knowing that he would then spend a month on the front line with no idea whether he would survive. Yet he was returning voluntarily, like tens of thousands of his fellow soldiers.

“We rarely realise here, in the European backwater, what a significant role military comradeship plays in fighting morale. Ukrainians fight for their homeland and take it very seriously,” Hlaváček stresses.

The Alley of Fallen Heroes and Respect for the Army

In every city, the author saw alleys of the fallen commemorating local residents who gave their lives for freedom. Soldiers in uniform enjoy natural respect among citizens. Hlaváček describes a scene on a packed minibus where a mother with a child gave up her seat to a soldier on crutches who had lost a leg.

Desertion — a Reality, Not a Collapse

The author does not shy away from difficult topics. Desertion does occur and affects tens of thousands of people from a million-strong army. But according to Hlaváček, those who truly did not want to fight left Ukraine long ago, and society does not morally condemn such people if they financially support their families from abroad.

“Peace of the Enslaved” Is Not a Value

The author’s main conclusion: Ukraine is showing Europe that peace is not always a positive value if it is the peace of the enslaved. “Freedom is far more important. Ukrainians know this well,” he writes.

Hlaváček is convinced that Ukraine is a frontier state of Europe and Western civilisation, protecting everyone else from the “Russian world”. If Ukraine falls, the next line of defence will have to be held by other Europeans.

Source: Forum24. Author: Petr Hlaváček. Photo: Petr Hlaváček / Forum24.