DISINFO: The Czech-Russian crisis serves West tries to cover its tracks in the attempted murder of Lukashenka
SUMMARY
The West is covering its tracks. Why is it dreaming about the murder of Russia’s main ally? Why the US needs a power change in Belarus? The diplomatic scandal between Czechia and Russia is an attempt to overshadow the failure of the alleged coup in Belarus, but the West didn’t manage to divert the public’s attention because the coup happened to be too big.
RESPONSE
The affirmation is false. While Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka alleged on 17 April 2021 that Belarusian and Russian intelligence services had thwarted a US-backed assassination attempt against him, no evidence was presented to back the claim, much less to imply any Western involvement in the supposed plot.
This disinformation narrative also attempts to obscure the reasons behind the crisis between Czechia and Russia, which, contrary to the claim, is not an effort to divert attention from events in Belarus but a result of Russia’s involvement in the 2014 explosion in the Czech locality of Vrbetice.
The investigation by Czech authorities have established beyond doubt that GRU agents Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, the same individuals considered responsible for the attempted murder of Sergey Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, were behind an explosion in an ammunition storage depot in Vrbetice four years before, which killed two people. According to investigators, an email supposedly from the National Guard of Tajikistan had requested permission for two individuals - ”Ruslan Tabarov” from Tajikistan and “Nicolaj Popa” from Moldova- to visit the storage site and included the scanned image of two false passports with the pictures of both men. The images of “Tabarov” and “Popa” matched those of Chepiga and Mishkin.
Prague's findings were independently corroborated by a joint investigation conducted by Bellingcat, The Insider (Russia), Der Spiegel (Germany), and Respekt.cz (Czechia).
This is part of a disinformation campaign about the events surrounding the Vrbetice explosion. See other examples in our database, such as claims that there is no evidence of Moscow’s involvement in the incident, that allegations in this regard are part of the informational preparation for a new Cold War or a ploy to influence the upcoming German elections, that the US forced Czechia into a quarrel with Russia, or that an anti-Russian campaign is the real reason behind the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Czechia, which is a smokescreen designed by the US.