The European Union (EU) needs to pay attention to the situation in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, where private entrepreneurs are involved in the trade and storage of weapons. This was announced on April 28 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“The European Union must nevertheless answer the question that we asked, which is to what extent the European Union controls the fulfillment by its members of obligations under various documents in the field of arms trade,” Lavrov said during a press conference.
The minister noted that now in the foreign media there are many materials, which indicate that the shells of anti-personnel mines were stored in the warehouses of the Czech Republic, which were then exported to another country, where they “received the filling.”
“Knowing how resourceful people are who sell weapons in violation of laws and international conventions, I would still once again draw the attention of the European Union that the information that is available in the media should be taken seriously,” Lavrov said.
Earlier that day, it became known that Bulgaria suspected six Russians of involvement in the explosions at four weapons depots. It was noted that Sofia is cooperating with the Czech Republic in the investigation of the explosions. Three Russians have been charged with the attempted murder of the Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev.
The official representative of the Chief Prosecutor of Bulgaria, Siika Mileva, noted that over the past 10 years, a number of cases of explosions in warehouses and production facilities of factories were recorded in the country, where explosives were neutralized, weapons and ammunition were produced. Similarities were found in four of these cases.
On April 25, Czech President Milos Zeman said that the republic’s special services had established a connection between Gebrev and the explosions at the ammunition depot in Vrbetica in 2014, accusations of the involvement of Russians in which caused discord in relations between Moscow and Prague.
At the same time, he stressed that the intelligence report contains no evidence of the involvement of “Russian agents” in the explosion. Zeman did not rule out the possibility that the situation around the story with the explosions in the warehouses in Vrbetica could be a game of the special services.
On April 17, Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis announced that the country’s authorities suspect the Russian special services of involvement in the explosion at an ammunition depot in Vrbetica in 2014.
On the same day, the Czech Republic announced its decision to expel 18 Russian diplomats. Russia responded by declaring 20 employees of the Czech embassy in Moscow persona non grata a day later. As a result, by May 31, the embassies of the Czech Republic and Russia will each have seven diplomats, 25 technical staff and 19 locally received people.
