The April 17 claim by Czech authorities that Russian GRU operatives were behind the 2014 explosions at a large ammunition depot in Vrbetice—a change from the government’s original conclusion that the explosions were an industrial accident—appears to trace back to “investigations” from Bellingcat, the “independent” private intelligence outfit created and sponsored by British MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service).
This shouldn’t be much of a surprise, considering the role of British intelligence in general, and in some cases Bellingcat specifically, in unsubstantiated anti-Russian whoppers, such as the “dodgy dossier” against Donald Trump, allegations that Russia covered up chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and the claims that Putin tried to poison Alexey Navalny.
The Bellingcat report claims that the two individuals involved were the same GRU agents they “discovered” were behind the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal in England in March 2018, and who Bellingcat announced in 2020 were in the Czech Republic during the period of the explosions.
The Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev attempts to connect the same alleged GRU agents and the bombing in the Czech Republic to the supposed poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in 2015.
Not only has this change in assessment by the Czech authorities been used as the basis to expel Russian diplomats, it was unsurprisingly picked up and pushed massively by the likes of the British imperial Chatham House (April 23 article, “Europe Must Admit Russia Is Waging War"), by the chair of the foreign affairs select committee in the House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat (this was “a war-like act,"), and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (this “highlights a disturbing pattern of behavior following the attack in Salisbury” on the Skripals).
In a press conference on April 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented, “The EU should probably examine all these confusing comments and statements which are not very emotionally sane, I’d say, and all the other issues relating to this story,” since it happened within the EU.
