CZECH REPUBLIC EXPELS 18 RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS OVER 2014 BOMBINGS

The Czech Republic is expelling 18 Russian embassy staff over explosions at an ammunition depot in 2014, the prime minister said, Michael Heitmann and Christian Thiele reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

The Russians have been identified as members of their country's SWR and GRU intelligence services, Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said. They are to leave the country within 48 hours. Hamacek is also acting head of the Foreign Ministry.

"The Czech Republic is a sovereign state and must respond to these unprecedented revelations in an appropriate manner," Prime Minister Andrej Babis said.

The blasts occurred at the ammunition depot in Vrbětice, 110 kilometers east of Prague, in October and December 2014. Two people were killed and there was extensive damage to property.

The site was used by commercial defense companies and hundreds of anti-personnel mines were stored there. A special police unit dedicated to organized crime released two photographs matching those of two men who are wanted in connection with the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Britain in 2018.

The suspected GRU members are said to have been present in the Czech Republic for six days in mid-October 2014, visiting the region where the ammunition depot is located. They allegedly traveled using Russian passports, with the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. After the explosions, thousands of soldiers spent two years defusing unexploded ordnance and munitions to make the area safe again.

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