Czech Republic expels 18 Russian envoys, accuses Moscow over ammunition depot blast
PRAGUE — The Czech Republic said on Sunday it had informed NATO and European Union allies about suspected Russian involvement in a 2014 ammunition depot explosion and the matter would be addressed at an E.U. foreign ministers' meeting on Monday.
The central European country expelled 18 Russian embassy
staff on Saturday over the issue and said investigations had linked Russian
intelligence to the explosion, which killed two people.
Russia's Interfax news agency cited Vladimir Dzhabarov,
first deputy head of the Russian upper house's international affairs committee,
on Saturday as saying Prague's assertions were absurd and Russia's response
should be proportionate.
Meanwhile, another high-profile official, Leonid Slutsky,
chairman of the State Duma's international affairs committee, said Saturday the
grounds for the Czech move “do not stand up to criticism,” adding that the
Czech Republic follows “the Russophobic course of the United States” by expelling
Russian diplomats, Russian state news agency Tass reported.
The expulsions and allegations come at a time of heightened
Russian-Western tensions and have triggered the biggest dispute between the
Czechs and Russia since the 1989 end of Communist rule, when Prague was under
Moscow's domination for decades.
On Sunday, the E.U.'s executive commission confirmed remarks
by acting Czech Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek on Twitter that the dispute would
be addressed during a previously schedule E.U. foreign ministers' video
conference on Monday.
Separately, Czech police said they were searching for two
men in connection with serious criminal activity who were carrying 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.
Those were the aliases used by two Russian military
intelligence (GRU) officers who British prosecutors charged with the attempted
poisoning of 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 that incident.
The United States and Britain said they stood in full
solidarity with the Czech Republic in the dispute with Russia.
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