In the Czech city of Brno, a monument to Soviet soldiers-liberators on the Moravian Square was again desecrated. It happened on April 21, the city hall said.
The inscriptions were made on the monument, TASS reports. The utility workers have already erased them.
The desecration of the monument to the soldiers of the USSR army was linked by some to accusations against Russia about alleged involvement in the explosions in the village of Vrbetice in 2014.
Earlier that day, the new Czech Foreign Minister, Jakub Kulganek, announced “an extremely difficult stage” in relations with Russia. He recalled that on Wednesday evening he will meet with the Russian Ambassador to Prague, Alexander Zmeevsky.
Relations between Russia and the Czech Republic have become strained after the Prime Minister of the country Andrei Babis announced on April 17 that the Russian special services were suspected of being involved in an explosion at an ammunition depot in Vrbetica in 2014. On the same day, the Czech Republic decided to expel 18 Russian diplomats. The European Union supported the accusations of the Czech Republic, calling it reasonable suspicions of the alleged involvement of the Russian side in the explosion of ammunition.
Moscow, in response, declared 20 employees of the Czech embassy in the Russian Federation persona non grata. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the expulsion of diplomats from the Russian Federation is an adequate response to aggressive actions on the part of Prague. In addition, the accusations in Moscow were categorically rejected, and the fact that Prague does not publish the report on the explosion, Zakharova called evidence of a lie.
In October 2019, a monument to the Red Army in the city of Brno was doused with red paint. This happened a day after vandals desecrated a monument to the Red Army in Ostrava in the north-east of the country.