The Czech Republic has expelled 18 Russian diplomats over suspicions that Russian intelligence services were involved in an explosion of an ammunition depot in 2014, the government said Saturday.
The Central European country is a NATO and EU member state, and the expulsions and allegations have sparked the biggest row with Russia since the end of the communist era in 1989.
His actions could prompt Russia to close the Czech embassy in Moscow, suggested a diplomatic source quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in a briefing broadcast live on television that there was “reasonable suspicion about the involvement of officers of the Russian intelligence service GRU … in the explosion of an ammunition depot in the Vrbetice area”.
Several explosions shook the Vrbetice depot, 330 km (205 miles) southeast of Prague, in October 2014, killing two employees of a private company renting the grounds from a state military organization.
Babis called the circumstances “unprecedented and scandalous,” while a Russian lawmaker quoted by Interfax described his claim as absurd.
The US Embassy in Prague said on Twitter that Washington “stands behind its steadfast ally, the Czech Republic. We appreciate their significant action to impose charges on Russia for its dangerous actions on Czech soil.”
Acting Czech Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek said 18 Russian embassy personnel, identified as Secret Service personnel, would be ordered to leave within 48 hours.
LINK TO SKRIPAL POISONING?
Hamacek drew a parallel with the poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018, and Czech police separately said they were looking for two men with Russian passports in connection with serious criminal activities on behalf of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan. Boshirov.
Those were the aliases used by two Russian military intelligence officers accused by British prosecutors of attempted murder of Skripal. She and Moscow both denied their involvement. read more
Hamacek said he had “decided to expel all personnel from the Russian embassy in Prague who had been clearly identified by our secret services as officers of the Russian secret services, SVR and GRU”.
The Interfax news agency quoted Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the House of Lords’ committee on international affairs, as saying that Prague’s claims were absurd and that Russia’s response should be proportionate.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in March 2018.
The attack triggered the largest wave of diplomatic expulsions between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
Czech police said Petrov and Boshirov, whose birth names have been given by British government documents such as Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepigas, had also used a Moldovan passport in the name of Nicolai Popa and a Tajik passport in the name of Ruslan Tabarov.
Police said both men were in the Czech Republic from October 11 to October 16, 2014, the day of the explosion. They were first in Prague and later in the eastern regions, where the depot is located.
Russia would not extradite them, Interfax said, citing an unnamed source.
“Russia’s main law prohibits the extradition to a foreign state of Russian citizens accused of committing a crime on the territory of a foreign state,” the source said.
Babis said the Czech investigation linked the suspects to a Russian military intelligence agency GRU 29155.
The New York Times reported in 2019 that 29155 was an elite unit within the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and murder.
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