DISINFO: Prague's compensation claims for Vrbetice explosions vindicate that Czechia is not a friendly country
SUMMARY
The Czech Republic has proven that it is not a friendly country to Russia, as Prague is requesting a compensation of 25,5 million euros from Russia because of Russian role in the Vrbetice explosions which took place back in 2014. This action continues a series of anti-Russian moves not only on behalf of Czechia but also on behalf of the West against Moscow.
RESPONSE
This is part of a disinformation campaign about the events surrounding the Vrbetice explosion in 2014, which killed two people and led to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the Czech Republic in April 2021.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Interior Minister Jan Hamacek announced on Saturday 17 April 2021 that the Czech intelligence services collected evidence demonstrating Russian involvement in the 2014 Vrbětice explosion.
More specifically, it implicates Unit 29155, a division of Russia's GRU agency previously linked to "assassination attempts and other subversive actions across Europe." Prague's findings were independently corroborated in the course of an investigation jointly conducted by Bellingcat, The Insider (Russia), Der Spiegel (Germany), and Respekt.cz (Czech Republic).
The investigation by Czech authorities established beyond doubt that GRU [Russia’s military intelligence] agents Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, the same individuals considered responsible for the attempted murder of Sergey Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, were behind the Vrbetice explosion (see here for further details).
Pro-Kremlin coverage of the Vrbetice incident resembles Moscow's standard approach to damage control in the face of incriminating evidence: knee-jerk denial of wrongdoing, attribution of the charges to Western Russophobia, and mass production of "alternative explanations." This template has been applied in the coverage of the MH17 crash, the Skripal poisoning, and the Navalny poisoning.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that the Czech military warehouse explosion was a US provocation, that the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Czechia is a smokescreen designed by the US, that allegations against Russia are a pretext to target Rosatom, an attempt to influence the upcoming German elections or preparation for an informational Cold War, or that Czechia is ruled by American and British intelligence agencies.