A day after the government of the Czech Republic blamed operations of the Russian military intelligence agency for a series of mysterious explosions in an ammunition depot in 2014 and expelled 18 Russian diplomats, the Russian government announced on Sunday that 20 Czech diplomats in reaction to it would be expelled.
The evictions indicate a further increase in tensions between the Kremlin and Western governments, which have reached an intensity not seen since the Cold War. The rift between the Czech Republic and Russia comes just days after the United States imposed heavy sanctions on Russian government officials and businesses in response to a large-scale hacking of US government computer systems.
In a statement, the Russian ministry called the Czech accusations “absurd” and accused the government of being an American puppet.
“In an effort to please the US following recent US sanctions against Russia, the Czech government in this case has even surpassed its overseas masters,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The expulsions are likely to reduce the Czech diplomatic presence in Russia, where the Czechs maintain only a few dozen diplomats.
By contrast, the Russian embassy in Prague, the Czech capital, is believed to be one of the largest in the country in Europe and, according to security experts, is used as a scene for intelligence operations carried out in a number of Western countries.
The explosions in 2014, first in the village of Vlachovice and then, two months later, at a nearby ammunition depot, were never fully declared, but at the time, authorities raised the possibility of sabotage. Two government-owned depot workers have been killed.
The blasts took place at a time when Ukrainian troops were desperate for weapons to defeat gains made by Russian-backed separatists, as well as when Russian troops deepened their involvement in the Syrian civil war.
On Saturday, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis announced that a subdivision of the Russian military intelligence agency, known as Unit 29155, was responsible for the blasts.
The unit, which has been operating for more than a decade, has been linked to a number of violent acts in Europe, including an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016 and the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian spy. the United Kingdom. two years later.
The British government in the absence charged two people from unit 29155 with the poisoning.
On Saturday, the Czech authorities said that the two agents, known under their aliases, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were in the Czech Republic in the days leading up to the first explosion in October 2014. In a statement, the Czech National Police Organized Crime Unit said the two men were wanted in connection with an unspecified ‘serious crime’.