The Czech Republic needs to rebuild political relations with Russia, said the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the republic Jakub Kulganek in an interview with the Právo newspaper.

“Our political relations need to be built again.

Nobody questions this.

I convened a closed round table for representatives of parliamentary parties so that we could discuss our ideas about relations with Russia.

It is good that the Czech Republic would have the widest possible political support on such a principled issue, ”Kulganek said.

His words are quoted by TASS.

The minister added that the issue of further development of relations between the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic should be decided by the new government of the republic, which will be formed following the parliamentary elections in October.

At the same time, according to the head of the Czech Foreign Ministry, relations between the countries will not normalize until Russia excludes the country from the list of unfriendly states.

“In order for our relations to improve, which is long-distance running, I would consider it an important step that the Czech Republic will be excluded from the list of unfriendly states.

In this situation, the ball is on the side of Russia.

But this is a matter of months, and possibly years, ”Kulganek said.

At the same time, the head of Czech diplomacy said that the recent actions of the republic's authorities, which led to the inclusion of the Czech Republic in the list of countries hostile to Russia, were correct.

“It was a very decisive step.

We acted as a sovereign, self-confident country.

We reacted correctly, ”the minister said.

Explosive story

Recall that the inclusion of the Czech Republic in the list of unfriendly countries led to a sharp exacerbation of relations between Moscow and Prague in April this year.

Then the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrei Babis said that Russia was allegedly involved in the explosions at ammunition depots in the village of Vrbetice in 2014.

The Czech authorities immediately announced the expulsion from the country of 18 Russian diplomats, who allegedly are members of the special services.

In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed a strong protest to Prague and declared 20 employees of the Czech diplomatic mission in Moscow persona non grata.

  • Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulganek

  • AFP

  • © Bernd von Jutrczenka

Soon, as a sign of solidarity with the Czech Republic, several Russian diplomats were expelled by Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

The accusations of the Czech Republic against the Russian Federation were also supported by the European Union, calling them justified.

After the expulsion of Czech diplomats from Russia, the foreign ministries of the country announced that they would continue to expel Russian foreign officials if Moscow did not return all the expelled employees of the Czech diplomatic mission back.

At the end of April, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that the Czech side, over the seven years that have passed since the incident in Vrbetica, had no prerequisites or evidence to accuse Russia of involvement in it.

“It turned out that there were warehouses in the Czech Republic that were not controlled by the government of this state or any of the official bodies.

The most unique and fascinating thing in this story is that, as follows from the materials of the media, not Russian, but Western, a private company operated on the territory of the Czech Republic, which belonged to a citizen of a NATO country, directly from Bulgaria, who operated in these warehouses, "Zakharova said on the air. TV channel "Russia-1".

In this regard, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation noted, Prague should answer the question of what was stored in these warehouses to the world community. 

It is worth noting that after the accusations made against Russia by the Czech government, the President of the Republic Milos Zeman said that in the investigation of the incident by the Czech special services, Russia's involvement in what happened until April 2021 was not mentioned.

However, Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis expressed disagreement with the president's position and called the only version of the explosions in Vrbetica in 2014 "an attack by Russian agents."

In turn, the speaker of the Czech Senate Milos Vystrchil called Zeman's words irresponsible and said that after his comment on the explosions in Vrbetica, the president could be charged with treason.

Commenting on the attacks on Russia, the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, called the accusations made by the Czech authorities "a wretched and base lie".

“Political leaders, the political elite of a group of Western countries are trying, step by step, with maniacal obstinacy, to destroy the delicate and rather fragile fabric of international stability and international security.

The Czech Republic distinguished itself before our very eyes - a country of rather limited sovereignty in foreign policy went into aggravation, confrontation with Russia.

And, I must admit, she got hers, ”Naryshkin said on April 23, speaking at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the history of World War II.

Response to hostile actions

Despite the absurdity of the accusations, the Czech authorities continued to issue anti-Russian rhetoric.

Thus, the Minister of Finance of the Republic Alena Shillerova announced on May 9 that Prague would demand from Moscow at least 1 billion kroons as compensation for the explosions in Vrbetica.

According to her, the claim will be made in accordance with international law, since it will allegedly take a long time to receive compensation through criminal proceedings.

  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

  • RIA News

  • © Alexey Kudenko

Soon, the Russian authorities published a list of countries unfriendly to the Russian Federation, which included two states: the United States and the Czech Republic.

Commenting on this step, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that the appearance of such a list was dictated by the hostile actions of Washington and Prague towards Moscow.

“Unfriendly gestures served as a pretext for making a decision to equalize the conditions in which our diplomatic missions work on each other's territory - ours in the Czech Republic and the United States, and theirs, respectively, in the Russian Federation.

As a concrete step, which has already been announced, we asked them to bring the number of locally hired personnel from among individuals - both Russian citizens and third-country nationals - to the level of a similar category of workers that we have in the Czech Republic and the United States ", - explained the head of Russian diplomacy.

In response, the Czech authorities intensified their confrontational rhetoric against Russia.

On June 28, the Czech side renewed its claims for compensation for the Vrbetica bombings by handing a note to Russian Ambassador Alexander Zmeevsky.

At the same time, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic Martin Smolek told the Russian ambassador that Moscow's decision to include the republic in the list of unfriendly countries should be canceled, since this contradicts the Vienna Convention of 1961 and the 1993 treaty on friendly relations between Russia and the Czech Republic.

Commenting on Yakub Kulganek's statement, Vladimir Olenchenko, senior researcher at the Center for European Studies at the IMEMO RAS, in an interview with RT, noted that the Czech Republic's desire to improve relations with Russia can only be welcomed. 

“However, apparently, the head of the Czech Foreign Ministry forgot what caused complications in Russian-Czech relations.

And they arose due to the fact that Prague made an absurd accusation against Russia in the events that took place on its territory seven years ago and indicate that the country's government does not control the activities of its military depots.

In this situation, the Russian leadership acted in the same way as the leadership of any other country, if its dignity was insulted, ”the expert emphasized.

As a result, contrary to the words of the head of the Czech Foreign Ministry, Prague, not Moscow, should take the first step towards normalizing relations, Vladimir Olenchenko added.

"This is already a standard technique of the EU and the Western countries in general, which are taking unfriendly steps towards Russia, thereby leading relations to a dead end, and then they argue that Russia should take steps towards a meeting," the expert said.

“If the Czech Republic is really interested in the normalization of relations, it itself needs to take certain steps, in particular, to apologize to Russia and admit that Prague was wrong,” the political scientist emphasized.

Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics at Moscow State Pedagogical University, agrees with this assessment of the situation.

“The Czech Foreign Minister is absolutely right that relations with Russia must be rebuilt.

But now the initiative in normalizing relations should come from Prague, because Moscow did not take any steps to spoil these relations.

The Czech Republic was included in the list of countries unfriendly to Russia after the fact, after the Czech authorities insulted Russia with their groundless accusations and thus played a leading role in the orchestrated information attack on the Russian Federation, "the source said.

In order to normalize bilateral relations, Prague needs to analyze its actions, work on mistakes and apologize to Russia, added Shapovalov.

However, in the near future, such a change in the Czech Republic's course towards the Russian Federation should not be expected, the expert said.

“Unfortunately, at present the Czech Republic is not a fully independent subject of international relations, and all its actions are aimed at fulfilling the will of the United States. Therefore, it is unlikely that in the near future we will hear an apology from her, ”the political scientist concluded.