DISINFO: The claims of Czech authorities about the 2014 Vrbětice explosion are false, anti-Russian propaganda
SUMMARY
The claims of Czech intelligence services about the 2014 Vrbětice explosion are highly untrustworthy. Russia had no logical reasons to organise something like this. The Czech police themselves closed the case as an accident and we are supposed to – without any evidence – say that it was the Russian Federation? Russia had no motive, if they knew about its existence, they could have simply informed the authorities. It all seems just like propaganda of Russophobes.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative dismissing any allegations of Moscow's malign activity abroad as "Russophobic."
The role of the GRU Unit 29155 in the 2014 Vrbětice explosion has already been established and comparisons to “war propaganda” are thus unfounded.
Czech authorities announced on 17 April 2021 that the Czech intelligence services have serious reasons to believe Russian GRU was involved in the 2014 Vrbětice explosion. The investigation established beyond doubt that GRU agents Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, the same individuals considered responsible for the attempted murder of Sergey Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, were behind the explosion in an ammunition storage depot in the Czech location of Vrbetice in 2014, which killed two people.
According to investigators, an email supposedly from the National Guard of Tajikistan had requested permission for two individuals - ”Ruslan Tabarov” from Tajikistan and “Nicolaj Popa” from Moldova - to visit the storage site and included the scanned image of two false passports with the pictures of both men. The images of “Tabarov” and “Popa” matched those of Chepiga and Mishkin.
Prague's findings were independently corroborated by a joint investigation conducted by Bellingcat, The Insider (Russia), Der Spiegel (Germany), and Respekt.cz (Czech Republic). Bellingcat announced already in 2020 that members of Unit 29155 were present in Czechia during the period when a large arms depot exploded in northern Moravia.