Two Russian agents have been linked to high-profile poisoning and a deadly explosion, but Europe can do little

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On Saturday, Czech police released images of two men they said were linked to an explosion that killed two people at a warehouse in Vrbetice in 2014.

A day later, the British Foreign Office said that, according to Czech authorities, the two men accused of attempting to murder the Skripali “were also behind the deaths of two civilians and an explosion in the Czech town of Vrbetice. ”.

A source in the Czech government, with direct knowledge of the investigation, said on Monday that police suspected the blast was premature and should not happen on Czech territory.

The source, who requested anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said the Czech police’s organized crime unit is following a line of investigation suggesting that the ammunition should have exploded in Bulgaria after it was exported there. It is not clear why the explosion occurred prematurely.

The Czech Republic has said it will expel 18 employees of the Russian Embassy in Prague in retaliation for the 2014 explosion, which caused huge financial and environmental damage.

Russia responded by expelling 20 diplomats from the Czech embassy in Moscow.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the Czech Republic’s decision “provocative and unfriendly.”

Russia is making fun of the West

The United Kingdom considers that the two men suspected of carrying out the Salisbury attack were Russian intelligence officers, first identified by the Bellingcat investigation site as Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin.
The Kremlin rejected the allegations and sometimes seemed to mock the West for its hysterical “Russophobia.” Russian and international media later confirmed the identity of Chepiga and Mishkin in interviews with residents of their villages of origin in the north and far east of Russia.

If it is true that the same two men were behind this explosion, and Moscow’s response to such serious accusations remains as clear, it raises serious questions about what Europe can really do to reduce Russia’s shameless hostility. .

The skippers were found unconscious on a bench in downtown Salisbury on March 4, 2018; tests showed they were exposed to Novichok, a nerve agent described as one of the deadliest chemical weapons ever made.
Moscow has denied any involvement in the Salisbury incident, and the two men claim to have been in the UK as tourists. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the two men identified as suspects are not “criminals.”

But even if Putin does not believe they are criminals, there is enough evidence that the two couples are far from innocent tourists who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In 2018, then-British Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers that British authorities believed the two suspects were officers of the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU.

“GRU is a very disciplined organization with a well-established chain of command, so this was not a fake operation,” May told parliament. “It was almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a higher level of the Russian state.”

The UK prosecution service said at the time that it “concluded that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction … [for] conspiracy to kill Sergei Skripal and attempted murder of Skripal, [and] Yulia ‘s daughter “.

Britain’s allies were equally convinced that the two men were working on behalf of the Russian government. Former US President Donald Trump expelled 60 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning. Several were expelled from 14 EU Member States, Canada and Ukraine.

Cathedral enthusiasts

After entering the United Kingdom under pseudonyms and carrying out the Salisbury attack, it is believed that “Petrov and Boshirov” escaped home to Russia, where they are now believed to be protected by the Russian state.

If the British version of events is correct, Russia’s official response to the accusations became increasingly serious once the couple arrived home safely.

In September 2018, Putin said that Russian authorities had identified the pair and found no evidence of criminal activity.

“We, of course, looked at what kind of people they are and we know who they are, we found them,” Putin told an audience at the Eastern Economic Forum in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.

“There is nothing unusual or murderous there, I assure you,” he insisted, adding, “Let them out somewhere in your media.”

Russians accused of Salisbury poisoning were in town

The very next day, the Kremlin RT-backed news network launched an almost mocking interview with the two, claiming that they were simply into sports nutrition and that the purpose of their 6,000-mile three-day trip was to visit the Cathedral. from Salisbury, with its 123-meter tower and the famous clock, “the first of its kind in the world.”

The British authorities rejected the men’s allegations and indicated movements to track CCTV images marked with time, which would be extremely unusual for tourists in the country.

The images showed that the men arrived in Great Britain on March 2. On March 3, the day before the attack, they traveled to Salisbury, staying in the city for less than two hours. They later claimed that heavy snow had made their tourism plans impossible, although local weather reports and videos dispute that.

The next day, they returned to Salisbury, arriving in town at 11.45am; they were seen in the vicinity of Skripal’s house before noon and boarded a train back to London at 13.50. That evening, they checked passports at Heathrow Airport at 7.30pm before boarding a plane to Moscow.

Just over a month after the RT interview, it was reported that one of the suspects received the honor of Vladimir Putin’s heroes.
Russia’s official response to Salisbury ranged from claims of tight pearls of Russophobia from diplomats to Putin himself calling Skripal a “Motherland traitor” and a “filthy one.”

Complaints about the Smear campaign

Kremlin supporters already claim that the accusations against alleged agents Petrov and Boshirov by Czech officials are part of a defeat campaign against Russia.

Andrey Kortunov, director general of Russia’s International Affairs Council, a state-sponsored think tank that closely follows the government’s official policy, told the BBC: “If you look at this whole Kremlin story, I think they “It would have been a false flag, and the Czech Republic is basically trying to do this on the eve of the EU ministry, to make life harder for Moscow.”

The meeting he is referring to is a video conference between European foreign ministers scheduled for Monday, where he is expected to discuss Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, the deteriorating health of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny and, perhaps, this latest development in Czech Republic .

Russia’s repeated criminal behavior should – at least on paper – make the expulsion of several diplomats and the prospect of further sanctions a major blow to European leaders – especially given that US President Joe Biden appears to be closely linked. with the EU on punishing Russia.

But even if the EU joins in condemning Russia this week for a wide range of issues, the Kremlin is unlikely to be bothered by any stamping on its feet.

After all, if recent years have taught Putin anything, it is: no matter how serious the accusations against him – from assisting a Syrian dictator to bombing his own people to sanctioning the assassination attempt on political opponents – European leaders they cannot deny their geography.

Whether it is the supply of natural resources or the removal of Europe from the vaccine shortage crisis, as long as Russia has something to offer its Western neighbors, pragmatic relaxation will gain, to some extent, the day.

CNN’s Ivana Kottasová contributed to the report.

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