Moskva From Miloš Zeman’s speech on Sunday in the Vrbětice case, the Russian media highlight the words of the Czech president that there is no evidence that Russian secret agents were in an ammunition depot where explosions took place in 2014. The claim of the Czech secret services that agents of Russian military intelligence GRU are reasonably suspected of two explosions of Vrbětice warehouses stood at the birth of a diplomatic rift between the Czech Republic and Russia last week.
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Prague first deported 18 employees of the Russian embassy, who according to the Czech authorities worked for the secret services, and then Moscow expelled 20 employees of the Czech embassy.
According to a report by the Security Information Service (BIS), there is no evidence or evidence that Russian agents are in the Vrbetice area, Zeman said in a televised speech on Sunday, among other things. about ten minutes of speech. “The fact that the BIS did not prove their participation does not mean that they did not enter the Vrbětice complex,” he added.
“The Czech president stated that there are no data on agents from Russia in Vrbětice,” writes the Russian news agency Interfax. He adds that Zeman emphasized that the Security and Information Service has no evidence that Russian agents visited the Vrbětice area.
The speech of the Czech president is similarly reported by the TASS agency, which, among other things, quotes Zeman’s words that the Security Information Service did not mention the incident in Vrbětice in its annual reports for the last six years. At the same time, TASS points out that, according to the president, it cannot be said that the suspicion of the involvement of two foreign agents is not serious, and this suspicion must be investigated.
The Ria Novosti agency begins the report on Zeman’s speech by drawing attention to his words about two versions of the causes of the explosions in Vrbětice: unprofessional handling of ammunition and the activities of foreign secret service agents.
Sunday’s speech by the President of the Republic Miloš Zeman regarding the Vrbětice case and the involvement of Russian GRU members in the local explosions. In the form of Wordcloud (the most frequently used words are the most prominent).
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Sensational statement
The Kommersant newspaper described Zeman’s statement as a sensational statement, because the president still considers a double explanation of the events in Vrbětice possible – according to one, the blame is on Russian agents, according to the other it was careless handling of ammunition.
The newspaper Nězavisimaja gazeta from Zeman’s speech also quotes a passage that the causes of explosions in Vrbětice are considered to be manipulation with ammunition or even the possible involvement of foreign special services.
The Czechia had no reason to accuse Russia of explosions in Vrbětice, said a spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy |
The same part of Zeman’s speech was also pointed out by the station Rádio Svobodná Evropa / Rádio Svoboda (RFE / RL). He states that Zeman does not rule out the involvement of the Russian secret service, but does not rule out a second version on unprofessional handling of ammunition. RFE / RL also mentions that Zeman, if Russia’s guilt was confirmed, would not be against punishment in the form of the exclusion of the Russian company Rosatom from the tender for the completion of the Dukovany nuclear power plant. As president, Zeman has mainly ceremonial powers, but often speaks in favor of Russia and is considered to favor Moscow, RFE / RL said.
The DPA wrote that the Czech president had warned against any form of hysteria. While the government of Prime Minister Andrei Babish accused Russian agents of the events in Vrbetice, Zeman spoke only of “suspicion” and spoke in favor of further police investigations, the DPA said.
Reuters also noted that Zeman considered the view that the explosions were caused by Russian agents from only one of two theories and that it did not rule out the possibility that it was just an accident.
Wait for the results of the police examination, the German medium called
German television and radio company Deutsche Welle (DW), which broadcasts abroad, also highlighted Zeman’s questioning of Russia’s involvement in the explosions and that the Czech president had warned of hysteria and called on the public to wait for the results of the police investigation. “Zeman is widely perceived as having close ties to the Russian government and was hosted by President Vladimir Putin in Sochi in 2017,” DW said. The station also notes that Czech opposition politicians accused Zeman of involvement in a disinformation campaign and criticized him for questioning the work of the Czech secret services.
Austrian public television ORF reported that Zeman criticized Russia “with unusual sharpness” and cites, for example, a sentence in which the Czech president compares two Russian agents associated with the Vrbětice explosions to Pat and Mat, the characters of two nerds in a series of animated fairy tales. what they did on Czech territory. The ORF also quotes Zeman’s words that no sovereign country can allow two agents from another state to carry out a terrorist attack on its territory. “Zeman is considered pro-Russian; he has now commented for the first time on the allegations made by the government against Prague against Moscow, “ORF stated on its website.
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