Russia expels Czech diplomats over spying row

MOSCOW - Russia has announced that 20 diplomats from the Czech Republic will be expelled after the Czechs expelled 18 Russian diplomats.

The Russian diplomats are suspected of being intelligence operatives involved in an explosion at a Czech arms depot in 2014 which killed two people.

Two Russians suspected of carrying out a nerve agent attack in the UK in 2018 are now also being linked to the blast.

EU foreign ministers are due to discuss the accusations.

Moscow has given the Czech diplomats a day to leave, while the Czech Republic has given the Russians 72 hours.

Russia’s foreign ministry called the Czech decision “unprecedented” and a “hostile act.”

“In their desire to please the United States against the background of recent US sanctions against Russia, Czech authorities in this respect even outdid their masters from across the pond,” said a foreign ministry statement.

Czech authorities say the diplomats are believed to be intelligence operatives, accusations the Russians have classed as unfounded and absurd.

The explosion tore apart an ammunitions storage depot in a forest at Vrbetice in the Czech Republic on October 16, 2014. Windows in nearby buildings were blown out and local schools were evacuated as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene. The remains of two men - aged 56 and 69 - who worked at the site were found more than a month later. The blast was assumed to have been an accident.

But painstaking detective work by the Czech authorities has pointed the finger at Moscow - and Unit 29155 of Russia’s GRU intelligence agency.