The Russian Foreign Ministry announced today that Russia will retaliate harshly against the Czech Republic over the deportation of 18 Russian diplomats from Prague for unfounded and non-existent reasons, according to Moscow.
The Czech Republic yesterday expelled 18 Russian diplomats and announced that investigations link the Russian secret services with an explosion in an ammunition depot in 2014, which had cost the lives of two people.
Prague’s deportations and allegations have sparked its biggest dispute with Russia since the end of the communist era in 1989.
Alongside, Czech police announced yesterday that they are looking for two men in connection with serious criminal activities, who have Russian passports with the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bosirov, and how the men were in the country in the days before the explosion.
The names were nicknames used by two Russian military intelligence officers accused by British prosecutors of trying to poison former Russian secret agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the neurotoxic agent in the city of Novitok in 2018. Moscow has denied involvement in the incident.
Interior and Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Hamatsek told state television that investigators believed the blast at the warehouse was aimed at a shipment of weapons that was to be transported from the warehouse and exploded after the weapons were transported, possibly to Bulgaria.
The minister also said that Prague would ask Moscow for help in interrogating the two men, but did not expect Moscow to cooperate.
The Czech weekly research magazine Respekt reported yesterday that the arms shipment was destined for a Bulgarian arms dealer believed to be supplying Ukraine at a time when Russian-backed separatists were fighting against pro-government forces in the country. .
Respekt and Czech state radio named a Bulgarian arms dealer whom Russian agents allegedly tried but failed to kill.
For its part, the news website Seznamzpravy.cz wrote that the arms shipment was probably intended for the Syrian guerrillas.
“We will take reciprocal measures that will oblige those who carried out this challenge to fully realize the responsibility of destroying the foundations of formal relations between our countries,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Czech Republic’s allegations were baseless as Prague had previously blamed its owners for the warehouse explosion and pledged Moscow to respond harshly.
“This hostile move is a continuation of a series of anti-Russian actions taken by the Czech Republic in recent years. “It is difficult not to see American traces here,” the statement said, accusing Prague of “trying to please the United States against the backdrop of recent US sanctions against Russia.”
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