The Czech Republic is expelling 18 Russian diplomats on suspicion that Russian intelligence services were involved in an ammunition depot explosion in 2014, his government said on Saturday.
The Central European country is a NATO and EU member state, and expulsions and accusations have erupted most with Russia since the end of the 1989 communist era.
His actions could lead Russia to consider closing the Czech Republic’s embassy in Moscow, a diplomatic source was quoted as saying by Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in a live television briefing that there were “well-founded suspicions about the involvement of Russian GRU intelligence officers … in the explosion of an ammunition depot in the Vrbetice area.”
Several explosions shook the Vrbetice warehouse, 330 km (205 miles) southeast of Prague, in October 2014, killing two employees of a private company that rented the place from a state military organization.
Babis called the circumstances “unprecedented and scandalous”, while a Russian parliamentarian quoted by Interfax described his accusation as absurd.
The US embassy in Prague said on Twitter that Washington “stands with its strong ally, the Czech Republic. We appreciate their significant action in imposing costs on Russia for its dangerous actions on Czech soil.”
Acting Czech Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek said the 18 employees of the Russian embassy, identified as secret service personnel, would be ordered to leave within 48 hours.
RELATED TO SKIPPING POISONING?
Hamacek drew a parallel with the poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018, and Czech police said separately that they were looking for two men carrying Russian passports in connection with a serious criminal activity in the name of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
These were the pseudonyms used by two Russian military intelligence officers whom British prosecutors accused of Skripal’s attempted murder. Both Moscow and Russia denied involvement. Read more
Hamacek said he “decided to expel all staff from the Russian embassy in Prague who were clearly identified by our secret services as Russian secret service officers, SVR and GRU.”
The Interfax news agency quoted Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of the upper house’s international affairs committee, as saying Prague’s allegations were absurd and Russia’s response should be proportionate.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a nervous agent in the English city of Salisbury in March 2018.
The attack caused the largest wave of diplomatic expulsions between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
Czech police said Petrov and Boshirov, whose birth names were given by British government documents such as Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepigas, also used a Moldovan passport in the name of Nicolai Popa and a Tajik one issued 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 warehouse 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 was quoted as saying.
Babis said the Czech investigation linked suspects to a GRU 29155 Russian military intelligence unit.
The New York Times reported in 2019 that 29,155 was an elite unit in the Russian intelligence system, skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.
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