Swedish Member of Parliament Hans Wallmark appealed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom, Anna Linde, with a call to impose sanctions against Russia after the Czech Republic. The appeal of the parliamentarian on May 3 was received by RT.
As the reason for the imposition of restrictions, Prague cited the 2014 explosions at an ammunition depot in Vrbetica, in which agents of the Russian special services were allegedly involved.
In this regard, Wallmark called on the states friendly to the Czech Republic, to which, in his opinion, Sweden belongs, to clarify their position by “summoning the Russian ambassador.”
Drawing attention to the steps taken by several European capitals, he pointed out that Sweden’s reaction to what happened in the Czech Republic was “restrained”.
“Nor are there any signs on the Swedish side that speak of the implementation of measures directed against the employees of the Russian embassy, or attempts to coordinate actions within the EU in this area,” the deputy explained.
The deputy proposed to conduct a “collective action of solidarity” in the form of expulsion from the EU and NATO member states “revealed secret employees of the Russian special services.”
On April 17, Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis announced suspicions of the Russian special services of involvement in the explosion at an ammunition depot in Vrbetica in 2014. On the same day, Prague decided to expel 18 Russian diplomats.
Moscow, in response to these actions, declared 20 employees of the Czech embassy in the Russian Federation persona non grata. As a result, after a series of mutual expulsions of diplomats, by May 31, seven diplomats, 25 technical staff and 19 people received on the spot will remain in the embassies of the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation.
Also, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia announced the expulsion of employees of the Russian embassies as a measure of solidarity with the Czech Republic. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared seven diplomats of these countries persona non grata.
About this, Czech President Milos Zeman said that the intelligence report does not contain evidence of the involvement of “Russian agents” in the explosion. He also drew attention to the fact that the country’s counterintelligence, even in the closed part of the reports, had not reported anything about some “Russian agents” for six years. 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.