Czechs expel 18 Russian diplomats over 2014 explosion

The Czech Republic is to expel 18 Russian diplomats over suspicions that Russia’s security services were involved in explosions at a Czech ammunition dump in 2014.

Prime minister Andrej Babis said that based on “unequivocal evidence” from Czech security services, there was “well-founded suspicion” that officers from unit 29155 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service were involved in the explosions near the village of Vrbetice, in which two people died.

“The Czech Republic is a sovereign state and must respond accordingly to these unprecedented findings,” Babis said in a brief statement on Saturday evening, adding that investigations were continuing.

Russian officials denied that there had been any Russian involvement in the explosions. Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the committee for international relations in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said that the Czech allegations were “nonsense”.

“We’ve never done anything like this in our life. It’s ridiculous. Why do we need to blow up something in the Czech Republic?” he told Russia’s Tass news agency. “This is just a contrived situation in order to support the Americans.”

The Czech expulsions come amid mounting concern in western capitals about a Russian military build up on its border with Ukraine, as well as renewed bout of tensions between Washington and Moscow.

On Thursday, the US imposed new sanctions on Russia, including on individuals and companies accused of taking part in efforts to interfere in US elections and conducting cyber attacks. Russia hit back the following day by expelling 10 US diplomats and imposing restrictions on those allowed to stay in the country.

Czech interior minister Jan Hamacek said that Czech-Russian relations would inevitably suffer as a result of the latest row, but that the Czech Republic had no option but to react to the information provided by its security services.

“We are in a similar situation to the United Kingdom in the case of the . . . attempted poisoning in Salisbury,” he said, referring to the attempted murder of the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in 2018.

Russia has denied any involvement in the assassination attempt, which was carried out using a novichok nerve agent.

Hamacek said that all 18 of the Russians to be expelled from the Czech Republic had been identified as working for Russia’s GRU and SVR intelligence agencies and would have 48 hours to leave the country.

Meanwhile, Czech Police issued a request for assistance in searching for two men who it said had been in the Czech Republic from October 11 until October 16 in 2014, the day of the explosion at the munitions dump.

It said that the men had carried various passports, including Russian ones in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — aliases used by two Russian intelligence officers charged by the UK with the attempted murder of Skripal.

Both men denied any involvement in the attempted assassination, claiming instead that they were sports nutritionists who had travelled to Salisbury to see the English city’s famous cathedral.

However, the assassination attempt sparked one of the biggest waves of tit-for-tat expulsions between the west and Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The US chargee d’affaires in Prague, Jennifer Bachus, said that the US stood with the Czech Republic, which she described as a “steadfast ally”.

“We appreciate their significant action to impose costs on Russia for its dangerous actions on Czech soil,” she said.