Czechs to discuss alleged Russian link to 2014 blast with EU

he Czech Republic is informing its NATO and European Union allies about suspected Russian involvement in a 2014 ammunition depot explosion and will discuss the matter at an EU foreign ministers' meeting on Monday, acting Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek said on Twitter on Sunday.

The central European country expelled 18 Russian embassy staff on Saturday and said that investigations linked Russian intelligence to the explosion, which killed two people.

The expulsions and allegations by Prague have triggered its biggest dispute with Russia since the end of the communist era in 1989.

The Interfax news agency cited Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian upper house's international affairs committee, on Saturday as saying Prague's claims were absurd and Russia's response should be proportionate.

“Czech police said they were searching for two men in connection with...the 2014 explosion.”

The same “... 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 denied involvement in that incident”

According to iROZHLAS, the exploded warehouses and weapons did not belong to the Czech Defense Ministry. At the time, they were used by a commercial arms dealer, the Imex Group. At the time of the blast, the weapons in storage were being prepared for shipments to Bulgaria, which was an intermediate point.
In another article, the publication found out that the recipient was a Bulgarian-based company, Emco. Both of these companies are owned by a Bulgarian businessman, licensed arms dealer Emilian Gebrev. He became a poisoning target by Russian agents shortly after the Czech blast. In 2015, he was twice poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.
The Czech media outlet Respekt, citing police sources, also claims that the weapons were being prepared for delivery to Gebrev, and focuses on an important detail – Gebrev was one of the suppliers of military goods for the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard, including in the midst of the active phase of confronting Russian aggression in Donbas.

https://www.unian.info/world/czech-ammo-blast-likely-staged-by-russia-to-disrupt-arms-supply-to-ukraine-media-11391901.html

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