The Czech authorities did not provide convincing evidence of their version of the events in Vrbetica, allegedly with the participation of GRU agents, the former head of military intelligence of the Czech Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General Andor Sandor, told RIA Novosti.
Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis said on April 17 that the Czech authorities suspect the Russian special services of involvement in the events in Vrbetica. The Kremlin called these accusations outrageous and unfounded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called what is happening in the Czech Republic around the investigation of the Vrbetica bombings schizophrenia. Nevertheless, 18 Russian diplomats were expelled from the Czech Republic, to which Moscow declared 20 employees of the Czech embassy persona non grata. Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulganek demanded that Russia return the expelled diplomats. Having not received a positive response, Prague again announced the reduction of the number of the Russian Embassy, giving a deadline until the end of May.
Agents were supposed to have local assistants
“I was surprised by the official explanation of the events in Vrbetica, with which the government came. I’m not saying that this is not true. But we have not received a single qualitative evidence that it (the explosions in the warehouses) was done by the GRU agents. What (Anatoly) Chepiga with (Alexander) Mishkin were on the eve of the explosions in Ostrava – this is documented (in the hotel), but the fact that they actually were (in the warehouses) in Vrbetica is denied both by the representatives of the Imex Group and its lawyer”, – Sandor said.
According to the general, he was very surprised that almost 7 years after the events in Vrbetica, the leaders of the Czech government, having voiced such a loud version, did not provide any evidence to support it.
“If these (explosions) were really done by people from the GRU, then they should have had assistants in the warehouse and assistants at the state level who would have informed them that this company was going to export weapons to Bulgaria. They could not read about it in “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, isn’t it!?” – says Shandor.
At the same time, the general believes that the Imex Group would not have been able to obtain official permission to export weapons to the prohibited region in 2014.
“I worked in this area and I know that government agencies monitor the issuance of licenses for the export of weapons with great rigor. In particular, the export of weapons by private companies to conflict areas is strictly prohibited, this is closely monitored by the Foreign Ministry, special services and the police. I do not believe that the Imex Group could have exported weapons to Ukraine. Perhaps it wanted to send them to this Bulgarian trader (Emilian Gebrev). But Bulgaria was already a NATO member in 2014, and sending weapons there did not give cause for concern”, – Sandor said.
According to Sandor, the Czech authorities would in no way allow the export of weapons to Ukraine or Syria, he is absolutely sure of this.
Government statements were made in a hurry and chaotic
Returning to the topic of informing the public on April 17 by the leaders of the Czech Cabinet of Ministers about the incident in Vrbetica, Sandor noted that they were clearly not ready for this and made their statements in a hurry and chaotic.
“Firstly, I do not believe that they (Prime Minister Andrei Babish and First Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamacek) allegedly found out about this (incident) at the last moment. Secondly, they had to come out with this information at a press conference Saturday night, because they feared a leak in the media. They were not ready, they did everything chaotically. As for the leakage of important information, unfortunately, this is a common thing in the Czech Republic”, – Sandor said.
Senators’ complaint to the Constitutional Court against Zeman has no chance of success
Sandor also touched upon the topic of a possible appeal of senators to the Constitutional Court in connection with the fact that President Milos Zeman allegedly disclosed in his TV speech “live” information from the investigation of the Vrbetice case.
“I think that the senators will not succeed in any of their attempts, they have no weighty arguments for filing a complaint with the Constitutional Court. On the other hand, Mr. President (Zeman) should have been more careful in his speech. play the original version of the investigation about the careless handling of weapons by the warehouse workers, because no one is actually investigating it”, – Shandor said.
“In any case, now we (the Czech Republic) are on the list of states hostile to the Russian Federation. I think that Russian politicians have gone too far in this. It is clear that some Czech firms and entrepreneurs will have problems in this regard. But this will not (for the Czech Republic ) a national tragedy. Let’s see how far the representatives of the Russian Federation want to go with possible sanctions and restrictions”, – Shandor said.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the list of unfriendly countries that will be banned from hiring Russians in diplomatic missions is being formed and will soon be published. In an interview with RIA Novosti, he said that Moscow will not indiscriminately record any country as “unfriendly”, the decision will be preceded by a deep analysis, while the list being drawn up now may be revised over time.
Mutual claims are not yet settled
At the same time, Sandor believes that the politicians of the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic have not yet exhausted possible mutual claims.
“So far, both sides have agreed on a certain quantitative representation in the embassies, which, of course, is not large. Seven diplomats are very few. And the fact that the Czech Embassy in Moscow will be deprived of the opportunity to employ local, Russian citizens is a big problem for us, which means that people from the Czech Republic will have to be sent to Moscow for technical work, which will be much more expensive”, – Sandor said.
“And, of course, a further escalation of relations between the two countries cannot be ruled out. So far, we have stopped at the fact that by the end of May the employees of the Russian Embassy will leave Prague. Then there will be a period of some attempts to come to an agreement. I think that both sides cannot be completely sure that nothing else (in the relations of both countries) will happen any more”, – General Shandor said in conclusion.