Why can’t Europe see that it’s at war with Russia?
Failing to respond adequately to the deterioration of its security serves only to convince Russia that it can continue to attack
23 April 2021 • 6:00pm
Besides news of the ongoing slow-motion murder of Alexey Navalny in prison, and the buildup of Russian troops and armour on the Ukrainian border, this week saw disclosure of a direct attack by Russia on a Nato and EU member state. Failure to respond assertively to this outrage would be inexcusable and dangerous.
A massive explosion in an ammunition depot in the Czech Republic in 2014 was found to be the work of the same two GRU officers, Aleksandr Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, who four years later carried out the Salisbury attack. It is hard to overstate the significance of this action. Russia sent officers of its intelligence agencies to carry out a sabotage in the heart of Europe, killing two Czech citizens in the process. As described by Tom Tugendhat MP, chair of the Hou
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The Czech minister of foreign affairs, Jakub Kulhánek, says that the Czech government will limit the number of diplomats allowed at the Russian Embassy in Prague to the number that the Kremlin permits at the Czech Embassy in Moscow. Mr. Kulhánek said that the move was in response to the operations of Russian intelligence on Czech territory, which he said was a flagrant breach of Czech sovereignty.
The decision is valid from Thursday and Moscow has until the end of May to withdraw its people from Prague.
The move comes following earlier tit-for-tat expulsions that occurred after the Czech government said last weekend that Russian GRU agents had been behind explosions at a munitions depot in Moravia in 2014.
Jan Hamáček, Andrej Babiš|Photo: Kateřina Šulová, ČTK
In a deepening diplomatic row with Russia, the Czech Republic is pushing Moscow to accept responsibility for what it has described as “an unprecedented act of terrorism on Czech soil” – a series of deadly blasts at an arms depot in Moravia. Following a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats, Prague gave Moscow less than 24 hours to retract its decision or face further expulsions which would aim to bring the embassies of the two countries on an equal footing –even if it meant starting from scratch.
Photo: Pavel Golovkin, ČTK/AP
The current stand-off between Moscow and Prague is perceived as the most serious crisis between the two countries since the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The 2014 blasts at a munitions depot in Moravia which killed two and caused damages to the tune of one billion crowns, and which the Czech intelligence service claims to have been the work of Russian agents, is being described as “state