The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted to the expulsion by the Czech Republic of two Russian diplomats. The ministry believes that Prague has acted "dishonestly and unworthily", taking such an unfriendly step.
The ministry emphasized that the Czech authorities without any reason caused serious damage to Russian-Czech relations.
“Prague’s actions will not only receive an adequate response, but will also be taken into account when forming the Russian line with regard to the Czech Republic. It will be necessary to answer for such provocations, ”the Russian Foreign Ministry specified.
The Russian Embassy in Prague announced that it had received a note from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs with notification of the expulsion of two Russian diplomats from the country. The embassy called the situation a fabricated provocation.
“This unfriendly step, which was originally based on unsubstantiated accusations in the media, indicates that Prague has no desire to normalize the Russian-Czech relations that have recently degraded through no fault of ours,” the statement said on the diplomatic mission's Facebook page.
Diplomats expelled from the country - acting Andrei Konchakov, the head of the Rossotrudnichestvo representative office in Prague; and the representative of the representative office named Rybakov. RIA Novosti was told about this by the deputy head of the federal agency Mikhail Bryukhanov, adding that the decision of the Czech side came as a surprise.
“In the Czech Republic they came up with this“ ricin scandal, ”this base story for cheap detectives. This decision is unjustified. It’s obviously not going to help relations between our two states, ”said Bruchanov.
He also added that the Rossotrudnichestvo office in Prague was left without a manager, and therefore the agency would send another employee there.
The announcement of the two employees of the Russian embassy as persons non grata was also earlier announced by the Prime Minister of the Republic Andrei Babish. According to him, quoted by Czech Radio, the decision to expel them was made in connection with the story of the alleged transportation of the toxic substance ricin to the Czech Republic.
- Andrey Babish
- AFP
- © Ludovic Marin / AFP
Babish said that, according to the information allegedly available to the Czech side, one of the employees of the Russian embassy purposely transmitted false information about the import of the substance to the Security and Information Service.
“In addition to the extra work for our special services, he thus created further problems in Czech-Russian relations and damaged Russia's reputation in the Czech Republic. We are a sovereign state, and such actions are unacceptable for us. In this situation, we made a decision: two employees of the Russian Embassy were called persons non grata, ”RIA Novosti quoted the prime minister as saying.
Recall that in late April, the Czech publication Respekt, citing certain sources, stated that in the early days of the month a man arrived in Prague with a Russian diplomatic passport, who was met by a car of the Russian diplomatic mission. The publication claims that the diplomat allegedly brought ricin poison with him, intended for the headman of the metropolitan area of Praha 6, Ondrzej Kolář, who initiated the dismantling of the monument to Ivan Konev, as well as for the mayor of Prague, Zdenek Grzyb, who decided to rename the square in front of the Russian embassy in honor of the Russian opposition Boris Nemtsov.
In May, the online edition of Seznam Zpráv published material about a conversation with and. about. Andrei Konchakov, the head of the Rossotrudnichestvo representative office in the republic, who allegedly was the Russian diplomat who brought poison to the country. Konchakov himself denied these allegations.
After the publication, the Russian Embassy in Prague announced that the diplomatic mission officer was receiving threats.
“Due to the personal persecution of the Russian diplomat by the Czech media, threats began to come to him. In this regard, the embassy is also forced to turn to the Czech side for the provision of a police guard to the diplomatic mission officer, ”the diplomatic mission said.
A spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, commenting on publications by the Czech media noted that they “look like another duck,” and also noted that no requests have been received to Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in turn, called the materials of the publications "unthinkable."
“When your colleagues at Radio Liberty * claim that ricin was discovered due to the new harsh screening methods that were introduced in the situation with coronavirus infection, well, you discovered. And did they miss this deadly tool in their country? “Who in their right mind would agree with this and believe in all these fabrications?” - added the minister.
* Radio Liberty / Radio Free Europe - mass media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 05.12.2017.