MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. The European Union should investigate the versions of what happened at ammunition warehouses in the Czech village of Vrbetice in 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference Monday.
"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, It all happened on its territory," he said.
Lavrov also said that Czech officials’ reaction to President Milos Zeman’s words about the investigation of the Vrbetice incident demonstrates that these people are reluctant to speak of anything but blaming Russia.
"As you know, President Zeman only suggested that all the theories of what had happened at the Vrbetice depot seven years ago be looked at. That’s all. And the fact that this absolutely reasonable statement was followed by such reaction from, as far as I remember, the parliament’s leadership among others, who accused President Zeman of hampering the investigation, means only one thing: some people, including those who make such statement, have already made their choice that there are no theories other than Russia’s blame," he said.
Amid such strong emotional reaction demonstrated by Czech politicians, the prosecutor’s office says the investigation is not yet over.
On April 17, Czech officials announced a decision to expel 18 employees of the Russian Embassy in Prague, who were allegedly "officers of Russian intelligence services." Prague claims Moscow was allegedly involved in the blasts at a munitions depots in the village of Vrbetice, back in 2014 that killed two people. The Russian Foreign Ministry lodged a strong protest to the Czech government and declared 20 employees of the Czech Embassy in Russia’s capital personae non grata.
Czech President Milos Zeman said on Sunday that the Czech Security Information Service’s reports had no mention of any evidence of the presence of any "Russian agents" at the munitions depot in Vrbetice and this theory had surfaced only in the recent weeks. Moreover, according to the Czech president, the country’s law enforces found evidence that Bulgarian arms trader Emilian Gebrev had been involved in the explosions at munitions depots in the village of Vrbetice, in the Czech Republic’s east, in 2014.