A series of explosions in 2014 that cost the Czech Republic
millions of dollars in reparations was first thought to be an accident.
But almost seven years later, the country's top intelligence officers alleged Russian sabotage
and expelled 18 embassy employees believed to be involved in a massive operation.
Russia called out the allegations as absurd and retaliated by firing 90% of their Czech embassy
staff, adding more fuel to the tensions between Russia and the rest of Europe...
The Incident
On October 16, 2014, an ammunition warehouse leased by a commercial arms dealer, Imex Group,
exploded in the Vrbětice village in the eastern Czech Republic district of Zlín.
The explosion at warehouse number 16 set off 50 metric tons of stored ammunition
thrown 870 yards away from the area. It also took the lives of two employees.
The ammunition depot had no formal protocol in case of an explosion,
and when local firefighters arrived to assess the situation, no one knew what to do.
Around 100 local citizens, including students from an elementary and high school, were evacuated from
the vicinity of the warehouse area in case another, more powerful explosion occurred.
A week later, 375 more people were evacuated as a preventative measure.
A series of random and uncontrolled detonations caused by ammunition falling from tree branches
continued to occur for another week.
Then, a month and a half later, on December 3, 2014, ammunition depot number 12 exploded.
The warehouse, which housed over 100 tonnes of ammunition and explosives,
was only three-quarters of a mile away from the first explosion.
According to the Imex Group's official lawyer, this depot only contained artillery ammunition
and submachine guns. Therefore, there was no way the warehouse could have exploded on its own.
For the remainder of the year, more sporadic and unexplained blasts continued to happen.
Cleanup
On December 22, cleanup specialists and pyrotechnicians returned to the village to
assess the damage of the second substantial explosion. Ammunition and fallout continued
to be removed well into January 2015, totaling 550 trucks filled with debris.
Removal of unexploded ammunition began a year later
and continued for years until it was officially finalized in October of 2020.
The extended cleanup cost taxpayers around 16 million dollars,
but it is estimated that the entire operation cost well over 46 million.
Russian Sabotage
Although the blast was first assumed to have been an accident,
a thorough investigation by Czech Republic officials produced different results.
On the evening of April 17, 2021, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš
officially accused Russia of sabotage at an urgent press conference.
According to the Czech Police and the Security Information Service, the warehouse explosions were
engineered by Russian military intelligence officers from the agency known as the GRU.
At the time of the blast, the ammunition and weapons in the storage houses were being prepared
to be shipped to the EMCO company in Bulgaria, owned by licensed arms dealer Emilian Gebrev.
Gebrev was one of the leading military goods suppliers for the
Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard amid the active phase of
the Russian and Ukrainian confrontation. He was also the owner of the Imex Group.
Six Russian intelligence officers were accused of being involved in the explosions,
including Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga.
According to the investigation, Mishkin and Chepiga traveled to Prague between October 13 and
16 in 2014 and requested permission to visit the warehouses using fake passports and fake names.
Although no witnesses spotted them at the facilities, Czech investigators
believe they visited the Vrbětice depots masquerading as potential arms buyers.
The same day as the conference, Jan Hamáček, Minister of the Interior,
and Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that the Czech Republic was
expelling 18 Russian diplomats identified as Russian Intelligence services members.
By the next week, Czech President Milos Zeman stated that they were
still investigating the possibility of an accident.
In a pre-recorded statement, Zeman said [QUOTE]: "We are working with two investigative
theories - the first, original one, that there was an explosion resulting from inexpert handling
of explosives, and the second, that it was an operation of a foreign intelligence service."
Europe Reacts
The Czech Republic accusations set a flurry of events in motion.
All through April of 2021, Czech citizens gathered outside the Russian embassy to condemn the country
and its leader, Vladimir Putin, for their alleged involvement in the tragic explosions.
Amidst the chaos and rage, NATO's North Atlantic Council issued an official statement reiterating
their preoccupation and support: [QUOTE] "Allies express deep concern over the
destabilising actions Russia continues to carry out across the Euro-Atlantic area,
including on Alliance territory, and stand in full solidarity with the Czech Republic."
Slovakia then expelled three of their Russian diplomats.
Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger expressed that the decision was an act of solidarity
after a thorough evaluation by their own intelligence services.
Soon after, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia also expelled some of their Russian diplomats,
while Albania and the Baltic states voiced their concerns over Russian intervention.
As a form of retaliation against the expulsions, the Russian government expelled
20 of their Czech diplomats, accounting for about 90% of their embassy staff.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Western Europe of mass-inducting anti-Russian psychosis,
denying Moscow's involvement in any incidents, and denouncing the accusations as absurd.
The investigations into what truly happened are still ongoing,
but theories around the alleged Russian involvement in the explosions have run rampant.
The Bellingcat Investigation Team, an independent international collective of researchers,
investigators, and citizen journalists, seems to conclude that: (QUOTE)
“The 2014 explosions in Czechia were part of a longer-term GRU operation aimed at
disrupting Ukraine’s capabilities to procure weapons and munitions critical to its defense
against Russian troops and Russia-sponsored militants in the war in Eastern Ukraine.”