https://english.radio.cz/czech-government-accuse-russia-involvement-explosion-expel-18-embassy-staff-8715080

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Czech government accuse Russia of involvement in explosion, expel 18
embassy staff

04/17/2021
 
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The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babis, says that the country's
security services have clear evidence that officers of the Russian
foreign military intelligence agency the GRU were involved in the
explosion of 50 tonnes of munitions at a depot in Vrbetice in Moravia
in October 2014 in which two people died.

At an extraordinary news conference on Saturday evening the minister
of the interior, Jan Hamacek, said that the Prague government was
expelling 18 members of staff at the Russian Embassy in the city who
had been identified as working for the country's secret services. The
spies have 48 hours to leave the Czech Republic.

The Czech police on Saturday evening released images of two men
wanted for serious offences. The two are Anatoly Chepig and Alexander
Mishkin, the same Russian GRU agents believed to have carried out a
failed assassination attempt using the poison Novichok in Salisbury
in the UK in 2018.

The news outlet Respekt reported that the Czech police's organised
crime unit had worked on the case for several years in cooperation
with the BIS counterintelligence service and the Brno Regional Public
Prosecutor's Office. Investigators managed to make further progress
last year on the basis of new information.

Mr. Babis thanked the Czech agencies for their work and said that the
Czech Republic was a sovereign state and had to react to such
unprecedented findings. He also told reporters President Milos Zeman
had been informed of the situation and had expressed absolute support
for the government's actions.

Author: Ian Willoughby

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