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He is said to have arrived in the country almost two months ago with a suitcase containing castor oil and planned to poison three Prague officials who had incited the Kremlin out of displeasure.
May 10 The 168-hour report on Czech public television quoted anonymous sources as saying that Andrei Konchakov flew to Prague’s Vaclav Havel airport two months ago with toxins and was taken to the headquarters of the Russian embassy in the Czech capital, which for a long time time has been considered a Russian spy. center.
Commenting on the situation on the Czech news portal Seznam Zpravy, Konchakov, 34, denied the allegations and said the suitcase contained “disinfectants and sweets,” according to Radio Free Europe / Radio Freedom.
“There must have been a mistake,” the man told the news portal and declined to answer further questions because he must first obtain Moscow’s permission.
Moscow, accused of attacks on its critics abroad, including in 2018. In Britain, Sergei Skripalis, a double agent poisoned by the Novichok chemical weapon, also denied the allegations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “like a duck thrown by the media,” and other Russian officials called the story part of an anti-Russian campaign.
Embassy of the Russian Federation in Prague on May 11. Facebook issued a statement stating that Konchakov was in danger, but did not specify what he was referring to. The statement also states that the embassy contacted the Czech police to protect A. Končakov.
According to the country’s media, the Czech intelligence services suspect Konchakov of being a Russian spy. Several attempts to contact the Czech counterintelligence agency BIS to confirm these allegations were unsuccessful.
According to a 168-hour report, Konchakov arrived at the Prague airport on March 14, well ahead of the previous report, and had castor oil in his luggage. As a diplomat, you were not required to hand over your luggage to Czech customs officials for a routine inspection.
Seznam Zpravy said Konchakov had been received by a head of the Russian embassy, who was named Alexander A. in a report. however, and the security of any sensitive documents or items brought.
Zdenek Hribas
Lazy personality
Konchakov is believed to have been born in Moscow in 1986, but there is little other publicly available data about him, and the facts are unclear and seem to contradict. According to The Insider, a Moscow-based investigative journalism portal, Konchakov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics.
Public records do not indicate when you graduated from that institution. According to The Insider, Konchakov started working for the Russian state agency Rossotrudnichestvo in Prague, which is responsible for the well-being of Russians living abroad.
There is also information that A. Konchakov since 2017. Since December, he has been director of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Prague. On the Center’s website, the Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics is named as Alma Mater by A. Konchakov, but is given its older name: the National University for Nuclear Research. Even more confusing is the field of study written on the website: international relations.
According to Seznam Zpravy, Konchakov has lived in the Czech Republic for several years, but only received diplomatic status last year. Yelena Mitrofanova, the director of Rossotrudničestvo, called the media reports an “unreasonable provocation”.
He knows how to anger the great
Russia is not the only world power outraged by the Mayor of Prague. Previously, a 38-year-old pirate politician drew resentment from the Chinese by ending the Czech capital’s city twinning agreement with Beijing, and then signed the agreement with the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.
According to the Czech weekly magazine Respekt, which quoted “the police and other responsible security services”, a Russian citizen traveling with a diplomatic passport arrived in Prague in early April armed with a suitcase of deadly poisonous castor oil. The report said the man was a representative of the Russian Secret Service and that his task was to assassinate Z. Hrib and two other mayors from the Prague districts.
Zdenek Hribas
Hrib infuriated Moscow over Boris Nemtsov, a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was shot on the Moscow street near the Kremlin in 2015 after renaming the square in the Czech capital where the Russian embassy is located. Two months after this name change, which took place in February, the Russian embassy changed its official address. However, Hrib said he did not understand why such a stallion could have emerged. “I do not see why the square, which is named in honor of his country’s former deputy prime minister, is being withdrawn,” said the mayor of Prague, who spoke to Politico via Skype.
This was not the first time that the mayor of the capital had angered the Russians. Previously, he ordered the removal of the city’s municipality from a commemorative plaque dedicated to Russian war hero Marshal Ivan Konev, who was declared a liberator from Prague at the end of World War II.
‘ME. Konev arrived in Prague after the Germans surrendered to the Czechs, “the Mayor of Prague explained in an interview with Politico.
The Czech authorities have provided no official explanation for Hrib and two other city officials, Pavel Novotny, mayor of the Rzeporie district in Prague, open criticism of the Kremlin, and Ondrej Kolar, mayor of the sixth district of Prague, who ordered the removal of the Marshal Konev in early April. began to monitor the police. O. Kolar decided to hide in a safe place due to the threat.
The Russian embassy immediately dismissed the allegations in the article, issuing a statement calling them “primitive and provocative propaganda.” The embassy also wrote to the Czech Foreign Ministry condemning “unacceptable and unjustified attacks on Russia and its embassy in Prague.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the assassination plan set out in an article in RIA Novosti magazine as “impossible”. Russia offered to speak about the dismantling of the Konev monument. S. Lavrov described this action as “lasts in 1993. breach of the friendship agreement”.
Hrib takes the threat stated in the article seriously. The Mayor of Prague said: “I cannot say why the police are taking these measures, but our country is not taking those measures without reason.”
When asked if he was scared, Hrib replied: “It is the duty of a politician to defend freedom of expression, even if it endangers his own safety. That’s the key. “
Masks for saints
However, to find enemies, Hrib does not have to search for them in places as distant as Moscow or Beijing: Czech President Milos Zeman is extremely unfavorable to the Mayor of Prague and sees it as a possible obstacle to trying to strengthen ties with Russia. and China.
The President accused the Mayor of Prague of following a separate “foreign policy” on China and Taiwan. Hrib himself states that he is simply criticizing China for persecuting the Uighurs and, more recently, for “hiding the facts” about the coronavirus pandemic in China.
Recently, the Czech president prevented the mayor of Prague from changing the name of the square where the Russian embassy is located. “Obviously, this is a political step, a classic manifestation of an attempt to attack someone by hiding in the bushes,” said his spokesman.
Hrib, whose Pirate Party is nationally in opposition to Prime Minister Andrei Babish’s government and is the mayor of Prague thanks to a complex coalition, responded that the decision to change the name had been made after a request, adding:
The mayor caused a lot of laughter in late March when a pro-government policy commentator, citing unidentified municipal sources, wrote that Hrib wanted to put masks on the astronomical clock on the astronomical clock in the Town Hall Square and use this gesture to encourage people to use them to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. could not get enough masks.
“It just came to our attention then. However, we decided not to,” Z. Hrib admitted with a smile.
The mayor deliberately ensures that he does not irritate powerful people.
“It just caught our eye then. We are doing what is important to the people of Prague. And when you work and act, you make enemies. They are not acquired by those who do nothing,” said Z. Hrib.
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