Clear message in Czech newspapers today - "Russian terror", "who were the Russian killer agents" etc. The GRU sabotage was to prevent delivery of some weapons Ukraine purchased in Czechia - and it kind of worked, that batch was blown up. Was it worth it? Rosatom is now being kicked out from the Dukovany nuclear power plant tender and Kremlin seems to have very seriously antagonized yet another country in EU.
@kravietz
This seems like an obvious false flag
Most czech people feel more loyal towards russia then EU and we have no actuve conflict with them either as far as I know...
It smess like bullshit to me.
@kravietz
Really baffling those first two comments there. Smh.
Russia's blatant aggressions reek of either incompetence or boldness. I don't like one over other.
It's both boldness and incompetence - and both are specific to GRU, which is a military service driven by "achieve objective at any cost" principle. Their operations are sloppy because they are sloppy, and are allowed to be sloppy because Kremlin is ready to take much larger reputational risks than any other Western country. At the same time Western public is kind of ready to accept completely different standards from Russia because it's "wild" 🤷
@whirli And to be honest, Western politicians are also seemingly willing to accept that behaviour from Russia as long as it has a plausible "we're only killing our own" excuse.
This was the case with Litvinenko, Skripals, all the Chechens - and in all cases the strongest reaction was a diplomatic note or expulsion of diplomats, even though innocent citizens were killed in most of the cases.
@whirli The case of Czechia is a step to a new level as the target was military infrastructure of an EU & NATO country, with the only "only killing our own" link was that the arms were allegedly (!) intended for Ukraine - and even if true, Ukraine is a sovereign country that has the right to buy their arms wherever they wish. But now even that destination is denied by the Bulgarian trader who purchased the ammunition - and still, two Czech citizens were left dead.
@whirli The challenge of Western countries is that they don't really have much options unless they were ready for an equivalent response, because this is certainly what Putin would understand, as he understood Turkey shooting down Russian jet that notoriously violated Turkish air space. The problem is that this way you effectively resort to the methods of your opponent, and Western countries try to claim moral superiority - as if buying gas from Putin was somehow better...
@kravietz Like always in representative democracy: follow the money.
I still remember how here in Finland Nord Stream 1 and 2 just sort of cruised through the parliament and noone patted an eye. There was our chance to play hard ball against Russia but big money won and here we are again: fucked.
Our elected and not-so-elected leaders in EU can talk all they want and impose sanctions against Russian elite but we will still have our gas coming from Russia. Those words and sanctions doesnt sound so convincing anymore.
@kravietz Don't forget that it was the Russians who shook the aircraft steps and that made Biden fall down 3 times. That must be attempted murder in your world.