Czechs in Ukraine Mostly, they were women with ethnic Ukrainian husbands. Some others stayed of their own choice. During the Soviet era, they were one of the most affected groups by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986. At the end of the 1980s, ten thousand Czechs lived in Ukraine. At the beginning of the 90s Czechoslovakia invited these remaining Czechs to return to the Czech Republic, which in 1993 almost 2,000 people did, and other people came to the Czech Republic in later years. As of today, Volhynian Czechs are still migrating. In 2014, after the revolution in Ukraine and the
Czechs in Ukraine Czechs in Ukraine Czechs in Ukraine, often known as Volhynian Czechs (Czech: "Volyňští Češi"), are ethnic Czechs or their descendants settled mostly in the Volhynia region of Ukraine, in the second half of the 19th century. Between 1868 and 1880, almost 16,000 Czechs left Austria-Hungary for the Russian Empire. The reasons for their departure were the difficult living conditions in the Czech lands, and the rumors of prosperity in the Russian realm, where there was a large amount of unused agricultural land. After the collapse of the Polish January Uprising against Russian rule (Volhynia was part of Poland prior to