Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s social media account on platform X was hacked on Tuesday, with false and alarming posts briefly appearing, including a fabricated claim that Russian troops had attacked Czech soldiers near Kaliningrad.
The fake posts were quickly removed and authorities have launched an investigation.
Government spokesperson Lucie Michut Jesatkova confirmed the cyberattack and dismissed the key claim. “The post about the attack on Czech soldiers is not true,” Jesatkova was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters, adding that police were now investigating the origin of the hack, which was said to have come from abroad.
One of the deleted posts falsely claimed that Russian forces had launched an assault near the border of Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave located between Poland and Lithuania.
However, Czechia, aka the Czech Republic, does not share a border with Kaliningrad or any part of Russia. According to The Kyiv Independent, the post appeared intended to “stoke panic or provoke confusion” at a time of heightened Nato-Russia tensions.
Additional false posts regarding US tariffs also appeared on the Czech prime minister’s account, which has over 366,000 followers. These were also taken down and the account has since returned to normal activity, Jesatkova said.
The cyberattack comes amid broader warnings from Western intelligence services about Russia’s intensifying disinformation campaigns and digital intrusions aimed at undermining European democracies.
According to The Kyiv Independent, there’s a growing concern among Nato countries that Russia could be laying the groundwork for a potential military escalation in the coming years.
Czechia has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Prague has provided military equipment, including tanks and artillery, taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and consistently backed EU and Nato sanctions targeting Moscow.
