"Ivan, Go Home!" — Prague Recalls the 1968 Occupation Outside the Russian Embassy

The slogan "Ivan, go home!" — once shouted by Czechs at Soviet soldiers during the 1968 occupation — rang out again outside the Russian Embassy in Prague. The gathering brought together people who came to honor the victims of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and to express solidarity with Ukraine.

Among those who spoke was Karel Kovařovic, an eyewitness to the events of August 21, 1968, outside the Czechoslovak Radio building. That day, he tried to save a young man wounded by Soviet troops and was himself injured in the process. He shared his memories directly with those assembled.

August '68 "broke the backbone" of society

"We know thousands of stories from August 21, 1968. Almost every witness we talk to remembers, down to the smallest detail, exactly what they were doing that day. I believe it was August '68 and the months and years of occupation that followed that broke our backbone. Ukrainians, on the other hand, refuse to give up — they're fighting relentlessly for the freedom our generation received as a gift," said Mikuláš Kroupa, director of the Memory of Nations organization.

Other speakers included political geographer Michael Romancov, dissident and one of the first signatories of Charter 77 Věra Kostlánová Roubalová, and Anna Abramchukova, a Ukrainian nurse living in Czechia. The program also featured a symbolic performance, in which participants together compiled a kind of "bill" for Soviet and Russian imperialism, meant to serve as a reminder of its consequences.

Fundraising for Ukraine

Alongside the event, organizers collected donations to support Ukraine. The organization People in Need gathered contributions for the SOS Ukraine fund, while Memory of Nations is raising money for four remote-controlled evacuation devices designed to help extract wounded people from areas under fire and drone surveillance.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz