The Czech Republic on Saturday expelled 18 Russian diplomats after claiming that two alleged Russian spies were behind a deadly explosion at a Czech ammunition depot in 2014.
In addition, the 18 were accused by the Prague authorities of being secret agents also involved in the explosion. The Russian diplomats were kicked out with the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis claiming that there is ‘a reasonable suspicion’ that Russian military intelligence officers were involved in the explosion at the town of Vrbetice which killed two Czech nationals.
In fact, the accusation that Russian spies were suddenly under ‘reasonable suspicion’ for an explosion in 2014 is, as the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out, groundless and absurd especially as the Czech government has previously blamed not Russian spies but the company that owned the warehouses where the munitions were stored.
This flimsy accusation was further undermined by a spokesperson for the Czech police who is reported to have told the press that the police could not confirm any link between the two named Russian nationals and the explosion.
The two Russians named by the Czech government just happen to be the two named by the UK government as being behind the alleged assassination attempt on the double agent Sergei Skripol and his daughter in Salisbury on March 4th 2018.
By linking these two alleged incidents and placing them – without any evidence – at the door of Russia the Czech government has enthusiastically joined in the demonisation of Russia and become a partner in the imperialist war preparations to smash the country and restore capitalism to the degenerate workers’ state.
The US and other NATO countries, including the UK, were quick to respond and applaud the Czech move with US State Department spokesman Ned Price saying: ‘The US stands with the Czech Republic in its firm response against Russia’s subversive actions on Czech soil.’
Tory Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the Tory government stands ‘in full support of our Czech allies who have exposed the lengths that the Russian intelligence services will go to in their attempts to conduct dangerous and malign operations in Europe.’
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the ‘hastily fabricated’ accusations are aimed at distracting from ‘accumulated problems in EU countries and in the West in general’.
Last week, US president Joe Biden slapped further sanctions on Russia and expelled 10 of its diplomats to punish Moscow for ‘interfering in the 2020 US presidential elections’ – they are to be punished for getting Biden elected!
US imperialism and its war machine NATO, which counts the Czech Republic as a member, has been stoking up a war crisis against Russia.
Over the Ukraine, the imperialist powers have escalated tensions claiming that Russia is on the point of invasion as justification for a military build-up that includes sending two warships to the Black Sea.
With the Ukraine announcing it will be entering joint military exercises with NATO and increasing its demands to be admitted as a full member of NATO, the build up of imperialist forces on the borders of Russia would place them just over 300 miles from Moscow.
It is against this build-up to war that the demonisation of Russia is being waged.
The massive world crisis of capitalism is driving the imperialist nations to try to smash up the gains of both the Russian and Chinese revolutions, driven by a capitalist class desperate to exploit the riches of these countries and also to divert attention from their own political and economic crisis.
The working class in the UK, US and EU will not be fooled. The enemy of the working class is not Russia or China, two deformed workers’ states, the enemy is the bankrupt capitalist class at home that in its desperation is threatening world war.
The only solution to war is for the working class of the world to unite and carry out socialist revolutions to put an end to capitalism for good.
This requires the building of sections of the Fourth International in every country to lead the world socialist revolution to victory.
