Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has vowed that his country will take care of the women and children among the more than 3 million people who have fled Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"I have informed Ukrainian friends that we will take care of their women and children," Fiala said on Twitter on March 19.
"The speed and size of the refugee wave is incomparable with past waves, [but] the Czech Republic can handle it."
Fiala also called on the European Union to aid countries that have taken on the flood of people leaving war-torn Ukraine.
The Czech Republic, with a population of about 11 million people but which does not border Ukraine, has taken in more than 270,000 refugees, according to government figures.
"We do not want the EU to introduce quotas, but to have financial solidarity with the countries most affected by the refugee wave," he added.
Fiala this week returned to Prague following a dramatic trip with his Polish and Slovenian counterparts to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the besieged Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Most of those fleeing the Russian invasion have been women and children, with conscription-age men largely forbidden to leave by the Ukraine government.
Those fleeing have crossed into EU countries at border points into Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Many have moved on to other EU countries.
More than 2 million of the refugees have crossed into Poland.
Non-EU Moldova has also taken in people fleeing Ukraine.
