Czech Republic will demand from Russia $ 47 million in compensation for explosions in warehouses

Seven years later, the Czech authorities announced the involvement of Russian military intelligence in this.

According to the Minister of Finance of the Czech Republic Alena Schillerova, the costs of clearing the territory are estimated at one billion kroons, which were paid from the state budget, although the warehouses were private. According to the head of the department, the Czech authorities are going to demand compensation within the framework of international law, since it will take a lot of time to seek payments in a criminal case. Czech television clarifies that this is only a preliminary amount, - the website of the radio station Ekho Moskvy notes.

The claim will be prepared within the next weeks and as the damage is clarified, the amount of compensation may be increased. In particular, the authorities of the affected region can put forward their demands, including compensation for moral damage and compensation for the inability to use property, since the release of the affected areas from scattered ammunition is still not completely completed, - notes RBC.

However, a number of Czech politicians have already noted that the country has few chances of receiving "compensation", RIA Novosti reports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously called the statements of the Czech leadership about the explosions "not very sane and confusing", - notes RT.

Explosions in warehouses in the village of Vrbetice took place on October 16 and December 3, 2014. They were used to store ammunition belonging to private arms companies. Ammunition from these warehouses was planned to be delivered to the company of the Bulgarian arms dealer Yemelyan Gebrev, who, presumably, then resold weapons to Ukraine, Syria and other countries. The Czech side accused the employees of the Russian GRU known as "Alexander Petrov" and "Ruslan Boshirov" of involvement in organizing the bombings, who in 2018 were accused in Great Britain of poisoning the former GRU colonel and British agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Against the background of accusations by the Russian special services of organizing the explosions, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats in April, to which Russia declared 20 employees of the country's embassy in Moscow persona non grata. As a result, only seven diplomats and 25 technical workers should remain in the diplomatic missions of both countries on the principle of parity. In support of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland also expelled Russian diplomats.