December 10 channel "Attention! Czechia | News | Brno, Prague", which is run by its administrators in Russian and is aimed at emigrants from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, published a complaint from one of its subscribers.
"They cancelled my euro account on the grounds that I am from an occupied territory that has long been under the control of the Russian Federation (Mariupol, since 2022), claiming that they are acting in accordance with the sanctions," complained a Ukrainian customer of the Czech Komerční banka (KB).
If he were said to reside not in eastern but in "Kiev, central or western Ukraine", he would have had no difficulties with his account.
This is not the only case
"The bank blocked my account without prior notice. Of course, my wife and I turned to the bank branch. The employee who dealt with the problem was sincerely surprised by the situation and tried to help us. For almost an hour he made phone calls, consulted, but everything was in vain," Yuri, a resident of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhya region, told the Standard.
Like the first publicized case, Yuri is a customer of Commercial Bank. In his own words, he opened a euro account so that his employer would have somewhere to send his salary. He has no loans, he claims, and he did not make the suspicious money transfers.
"They did not tell us that our account was blocked because we were from the occupied territory - and I stress this - but they also did not tell us why this happened, what the reason was. The banker helped us to write a complaint to the main KB department in Prague," Yuriy says, adding that he has only Ukrainian citizenship - neither he nor anyone in his family acquired Russian citizenship.
Later, he received a reply from the head office that the complaint had been checked and that he should contact his branch again to further solve the problem. As he works as a chauffeur, he is out of his temporary residence in the Czech Republic for an extended period of time and has not yet been to his office.
"This is not the first time I hear about a similar situation, it hurts me a lot if accounts are really blocked because the account holder's village is under Russian occupation," Yuri concludes. Recall that up to 70 percent of Zaporizhzhya region, from which Yuri and his family fled, is under occupation.
Neither no nor yes
The Standard asked the press department of Komerchnaya Bank to comment on whether there is indeed a cancellation of accounts of Ukrainians on the grounds that they come from the occupied territory.
"The Commercial Bank treats each customer individually. For customers from annexed areas, it applies increased control in accordance with the AML law. At the same time, Komerčná banka follows the EU legislation, which sets various restrictions and is binding for the bank," the KB spokesman replied.
The AML Act, i.e. "theAct on Certain Measures against the Legalization of the Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism, regulates measures and procedures to prevent the legalization of the proceeds of crime (money laundering) and the financing of terrorism," explains Czech lawyer Ondřej Preuss.
This is directly related to the fact that back in November 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism in the context of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Following the 19th package of anti-Russian sanctions, adopted on 23 October this year, the international online bank Revolut did block the accounts of all Russians and Belarusians, but this was the only known case, and the bank's actions did not affect Ukrainians.
Although in the Czech Republic, as in other EU countries, Russians and Belarusians are subject to increased security requirements when opening a current account or transferring large amounts of money, Ukrainians have not been subject to similar restrictions for a long time.
While both Czech and Russian investigative journalists have already proven that Russian oligarchs have their cash and real estate assets in EU countries and even directly in the Czech Republic, restrictions by Czech money institutions have long affected - and still affect - ordinary Russian emigrants.
However, if KB continues to restrict the accounts of Ukrainians, the number of accounts closed or blocked will grow in direct proportion to the Russian military's advance in Ukraine.
Although the bank claims that it is following European regulations, these do not say that people from the occupied part of Ukraine should be treated as a security threat.