PRAGUE – The Czech Republic said on Sunday it had informed NATO and European Union allies of Russia’s alleged involvement in a 2014 ammunition depot blast and the issue would be addressed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday.
The Central European country on Saturday expelled 18 employees of the Russian embassy because of the problem and said that the investigations linked the Russian secret services to the explosion, which killed two people.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of the Russian upper house’s international affairs committee, on Saturday as saying the Prague allegations were absurd and Russia’s response should be proportionate.
Meanwhile, another high-ranking official, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs commission, said on Saturday the reasons for the Czech action “cannot resist criticism”, adding that the Czech Republic is following the “Russophobic course of the United Kingdom” Russians, reported the Russian state news agency Tass.
The expulsions and accusations come at a time of heightened Russian-Western tensions and sparked the biggest dispute between the Czechs and Russia since the end of the communist rule in 1989, when Prague was under Moscow’s rule for decades.
On Sunday, the EU executive committee confirmed the statements of Czech Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek on Twitter that the dispute will be addressed on Monday during a video conference of EU foreign ministers.
Separately, Czech police said they were looking for two men in connection with a serious criminal activity bearing Russian passports in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and that the men were in the country in the days leading up to the 2014 explosion.
These were the pseudonyms used by two Russian military intelligence officers (GRUs) whom British prosecutors accused of attempting to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018.
Moscow has denied involvement in the incident.
The United States and Britain have said they have shown solidarity with the Czech Republic in a dispute with Russia.
A statement by the US Embassy in Prague said on Saturday Washington “stands with its firm ally, the Czech Republic. We appreciate their significant action to impose costs on Russia for its dangerous actions on Czech soil.”
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Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab he said on Twitter: “The United Kingdom fully supports our Czech allies, who have exposed the lengths that the GRU will go in their attempts to carry out dangerous and malicious operations – and highlights a disruptive behavior following the Salisbury attack.”
The Kremlin’s relations with many NATO members, most of whom are in the EU, as well as the United States, are more strained than at any time since the Cold War.
The West has sounded the alarm over a large Russian military build-up at Russia’s western borders and in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, following an escalation of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and government forces. .
The United States has imposed sanctions on Russia this week for interfering in last year’s US elections, cyber piracy, Ukraine’s aggression and other alleged malicious acts, prompting Moscow to retaliate.
Last month, US President Joe Biden said he believed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was a “killer” and Moscow recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations.