Czechia's interior minister Jan Hamacek, who is also acting foreign minister, summoned Russia's ambassador in Prague on Wednesday, in the latest of a bitter row between the two countries that is threatening to significantly destabilize Czech-Russian ties.

Relations between the two countries have plunged to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War over the weekend, following allegations by Czech authorities that Russian intelligence was behind the fatal 2014 explosion that destroyed a remote arms warehouse in a Czech forest.

 

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What started this?

On April 17, Czech authorities made the stunning allegation that local detectives have found "unequivocal evidence" that a deadly explosion at an arms depot at Vrbetice in 2014 could be linked to the infamous Unit 29155 of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.

"There is well-grounded suspicion about the involvement of officers of the Russian intelligence service GRU, unit 29155, in the explosion of the ammunition depot in the Vrbetice area," said Czechia's Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

 

 

The two Russian operatives blamed by Czech detectives for the Vrbetice ammunition depot blast appear to be the same men accused of the nerve agent attack on Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in the UK in 2018. The Skripals survived but Dawn Sturgess, a local Salisbury woman, died several months afterwards after coming into contact with Novichok, the nerve agent used in the attack.

Moscow has denied any involvement in the UK poisoning.

As a consequence of the Czech police findings, Czechia expelled 18 Russian diplomats with 72-hours notice, accusing them all of being spies. 

"We succeeded in breaking up both of the big Russian [spy] operation cells, and for the Russian side, it will be very complicated to put them together again," said Hamacek on Monday.

 

 

Russia has officially denied any involvement in the arms depot explosion. In response to Czechia's "provocation," the Kremlin on Sunday ordered 20 Czech diplomats to leave the country, saying Czechia's actions were "destroying the foundation of normal ties between our countries." The Czech officials were forced to leave within a day.

Hamacek described Russia's reaction as "stronger than we had expected. It is more diplomats than the number of intelligence officers we expelled."

During a press conference on Tuesday, he called for the support of the European Union and NATO countries in retaliation against Russia.

 

What happened in 2014?

On October 16, 2014, multiple explosions tore apart an arms depot in a forest in the village of Vrbetice, 330 km southeast of the capital, Prague. 

Hundreds of people in nearby villages were evacuated in the aftermath of the blast and the fire following it.

The bodies of two men who worked at the site were found more than a month after the blast, which was initially thought to be an accident.

A second explosion on the same site occurred on December 3 of the same year.

Czech officials now believe the attack had been aimed at a shipment to Bulgarian arms trader Emilian Gebrev, one of the people storing arms at the Vrbetice warehouse. He was poisoned, along with his son in 2015.

Czech investigators, as reported by national media, suggest the weapons stored at the depot might have been intended for shipment to either Ukrainian forces fighting pro-Russia rebels or rebels in Syria fighting the Russia-backed government in the country.

 

 

Why has it become an issue now?

Czech detectives only recently concluded that the two Russian operatives from Russia's military intelligence agency, Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, were responsible for the blast. 

The connection to the two Russians was made as the result of an email sent to Imex Group, the company operating the depot, containing the passports of two men, allegedly from the National Guard of Tajikistan, requesting access to the arms warehouse for inspection.

The pictures on the passports match the ones of Mishkin and Chepiga.

 

 

What's the fallout?

The row between the two countries is said to be the biggest since the end of the Soviet Union's domination of Eastern Europe in 1989.

After announcing the findings of the investigation over the 2014 blast, Hamacek declared he would not travel to Moscow this week, as planned, to negotiate the purchase of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.

The consequences are also economic: Czech industry and trade minister Karel Havlicek reportedly said last week that Russian companies would likely be excluded from bidding on a contract to build a new nuclear power plant at the Czech Dukovany complex.

The rift between Czechia and Russia comes at a time when relations between the Kremlin and the West have dramatically cooled. 

On April 15, Poland expelled three Russian diplomats in solidarity with the U.S., which earlier on the same day announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats together with sanctions against Moscow for alleged election interference, cyberattacks and other "harmful" activities.

Also making the West nervous is the build-up of Russian army forces at the border with Ukraine, which many fear could turn into a possible invasion of the country by Russia.

 

 

Russia called the Czech accusation and subsequent expulsion of its diplomats "the continuation of a series of anti-Russian actions undertaken by the Czech Republic in recent years," and accused the Czech government of "striving to please the United States against the backdrop of recent U.S. sanctions against Russia."

"In their desire to please the United States against the background of recent U.S. sanctions against Russia, Czech authorities in this respect even outdid their masters from across the pond," said a foreign ministry statement.

 

_{Cover image: Michal Cizek/AFP}