News server Novinky.cz reports that two football hooligans who are fans of Slavia Prague left the Czech Republic at the end of February heading for the center of anti-government unrest in the capital of Ukraine. They joined the neo-Nazi "Right Sector" movement in Kiev, which espouses the legacy of Stepan Bandera, a radical 20th-century fighter for Ukrainian independence.
The Antifa.cz website has warned that Filip Vávra, "one of the most intellectually-equipped of the Czech neo-Nazis", has also traveled to Ukraine. The website also reports that one of the Slavia hooligans who went to join the fighting was Jan Králík, nicknamed Karlos.
"On the bus it was explained to us that militant demonstrators were being divided into fighting units and that each unit would have its own tasks and territory. In Kiev we’re supposedly going to put together some weapons and they will assign us to a group," one of the hooligans posted to a social networking site.
Novinky.cz has reported that "Czech state security services are reviewing the travel of both men to Kiev and their contacts with Ukrainian nationalists." Antifa.cz reports that Vávra, whose trip to Ukraine took place after the hooligans left for Kiev, has not been active for several years now.
"After he de facto escalated the 2008 conflict at the Janov housing estate in Litvínov and then avoided the subsequent police raid one year later, questions were once again raised about his collaboration with the security services, and last fall he opened a Cross athlete gym in the Vinohrady neighborhood of Prague," Antifa.cz reports. Experts on extremism say the Czech ultra-right scene and Czech hooligans have been newly inspired by events in Ukraine.
"Photographs expressing support for the Right Sector are turning up during league football matches and even at smaller pitches [in the Czech Republic]. They include symbols of Nazism and racism," Novinky.cz reports.
