The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the UK stood in “full support” of the Czech Republic after the country’s police announced they were hunting two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury poisonings, in relation to an explosion at an arms depot.
Sunday April 18, 2021, 11:08 AM
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are linked to an explosion at an arms depot in the Czech Republic in 2014.
Two Russian men suspected of carrying out the Salisbury poisonings are being linked to a 2014 explosion at an arms depot in the Czech Republic.
Czech police’s organised crime unit published on Saturday photographs of two foreign citizens were using Russian passports and were identified as Alexander Petrov, 41, and Ruslan Boshirov, 43.
The duo were suspected of being behind the Salisbury Novichok poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018.
Police said Petrov and Boshirow visited the country, including the Zlin region where Vrbetice is located, between October 11 and October 16 in 2014 and asked the public for any information about them.
BBC News
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image caption Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov
Russia has announced that 20 diplomats from the Czech Republic will be expelled from the country.
The Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats on Saturday.
Czech local intelligence agents claim the diplomats are Russian intelligence operatives. They are suspected of involvement in an explosion at an arms depot in 2014.
European Union foreign ministers are set to discuss the claims about the blast during a meeting on Monday.
Moscow has given the Czech diplomats a day to leave while the Czech Republic has given the Russians 72 hours.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the Czech decision unprecedented and a hostile act .
Russian Duo Wanted Over Double Agent Poisoning Are Linked to Czech Explosion
On 4/18/21 at 9:56 AM EDT
Czech Republic officials have linked two Russians, already suspected of poisoning a former double agent in the U.K. in 2018, to a deadly explosion in October 2014.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov have been named by Czech investigators who are looking into the explosion at an ammunition depot that killed two workers.
The blast was so strong it blew out windows in nearby buildings and the remains of two men aged 56 and 69 were only found more than a month later.
Petrov and Boshirov, whose real names are Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga respectively, are also suspected of poisoning Soviet double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, southern England, in March 2018. The Skripal s survived the attack.