DISINFO: Vrbetice explosion is a pretext for vilifying Russia ahead of Biden-Putin Summit
SUMMARY
In the months leading up to the meeting between Biden and Putin, the 2014 ammunitions explosion in the Czech village of Vrbetice regained traction. Despite not having any evidence, NATO and EU members have accused the Kremlin of being responsible for the explosion and have implemented sanctions against Russia. There is an alternative story, however, namely that the renewed interest in the explosion is simply an excuse for introducing sanctions against Russia and disparaging Russia prior to the meeting with Biden.
RESPONSE
A recurrent disinformation narrative about the 2014 ammunition warehouse explosion in Vrbětice, claiming that there is no evidence of Russia’s involvement and that Russia has been falsely accused by the West for political reasons.
Contrary to the claim, there is overwhelming evidence linking Russia’s secret services to the 2014 explosion in Vrbětice, which resulted in the death of two civilians. Czech authorities have established that Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, the same GRU agents who in 2018 poisoned Sergei Skripal in the UK, were responsible for the explosion. The two men travelled from Moscow to Prague a few days before the explosion using the same GRU-issued passports they would later use to travel to the UK in 2018. Prior to arriving in Czechia, they had booked a business appointment at the ammunition warehouse in Vrbětice using untraceable email addresses and a different set of GRU-issued passports. Once in Czechia, they were issued with a permit authorising them to be in Vrbětice on 16 October 2014 – the same day the explosion occurred. The findings of the Czech authorities have been verified by an independent investigation conducted by Bellingcat, the Insider, Der Spiegel, and Respekt.cz.
The claim that the Czech investigation into the 2014 explosion in Vrbětice is somehow connected to the summit talks between Biden and Putin that took place in Geneva on 16 June 2021 is groundless and a false parallel. Links to Russia’s secret services were discovered long before the summit was planned. An initial investigation by Czech authorities started shortly after the explosion but proved inconclusive. However, the investigation was renewed in 2018, when the UK revealed the fake names of the two GRU operatives who poisoned Andrei Skripal. As confirmed independently by Bellingcat in 2020, the same two men, as well as several other GRU agents, entered Czechia shortly before the bomb was planted.
Read similar cases of disinformation in the database claiming that foreign secret services fabricated Russian involvement in the Vrbětice explosion, that the Czech authorities have no evidence of Russian involvement in the Vrbětice explosion, that Czechia's accusations about Kremlin involvement in the Vrbětice explosions are part of a Russophobic campaign, and that Czechia targets Russia in the Vrbetice case to distract attention from incompetence.