MOSCO W, April 25. /TASS/. The Czech Republic must at least apologize to Russia for what it has done to wreck bilateral relation as now it may take years to restore dialogue with Moscow, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, said on Sunday.
"The Czech Republic should at least apologize, of course, if Prague is still independent in its decisions," he told journalists.
"The Russian-Czech relations have been brought down dramatically, with talks on the Sputnik V vaccine supplies being cut short. It may take years to resume dialogue," he said.
"Czech President Milos Zeman’s statement once again demonstrates that Prague had no actual grounds and evidence to raise any accusations against Russia, the more so to expel its diplomats," he said. "Obviously, these actions were an information veil to diver attention of the world community from an attempted state coup in Belarus."
"It looks like someone needed a small ‘victorious’ diplomatic war to hide the true face of the United States and the entire collective West. But the Czech side has turned to be a loser after Russia’s tough and immediate response," he added.
Czech President Milos Zeman said earlier 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.
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." In response, Moscow declared 20 employees of the Czech Embassy in Russia’s capital personae non grata. Prague condemned this response as ‘inadequate" and demanded that they had to be returned back by 13:00 Moscow time on Thursday.
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.