The Czech Senate demands to terminate the treaty on friendly relations with the Russian Federation

The meeting was attended by 72 senators, 67 of whom voted for the resolution, Czech TV reports. The Senate supported the expulsion of 18 representatives of the Russian diplomatic mission, and the expulsion of 20 employees of the Czech embassy from Russia was condemned. The upper chamber demanded that the republic's authorities publish the open part of the report on the explosions in Vrbetica.

It's worth reminding that on April 21, it became known that the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Jakub Kulganek summoned Russian Ambassador Alexander Zmeevsky and said that the Czech Republic would equalize the number of employees of the Russian embassy with the number of Czech diplomats in Moscow, if by 12:00 on April 22 Russia did not return all previously expelled employees of the Czech embassy. For his part, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, noted that Vladimir Putin, in his Address on April 21, declared "the futility of talking with us in the style of demands".

Earlier, we will remind, it became known about the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats. The Czech side claims that they are "officers of the Russian special services of the SVR and the GRU". This step was taken in connection with the allegedly revealed circumstances of the explosion in Vrbetica in 2014. Czech Prosecutor General Pavel Zeman noted that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, suspected in Great Britain of poisoning the former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, are behind the events.

In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry recognized 20 Czech diplomats as persona non grata.

At the same time, Czech Prime Minister Andrey Babish refused to consider the explosion at a warehouse in Vrbetica an act of state terrorism on the part of Russia.