Two Russian diplomats are being expelled by the Czech government amid a hoax poison plot against three Prague politicians.

The government in Prague says infighting between Russian embassy staff resulted in one of them sending details of the fictitious plot to Czech intelligence. In response, the three mayors were initially given police protection.

Russia condemned the expulsions as an “unfriendly act”.

The expulsion was announced on Friday by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who described the move as “appropriate and adequate”.

“We are interested in having good relations with all countries, but we are a sovereign state and such actions are unacceptable on our territory.” He gave no more details about the new information.

“The government has offered an explanation, but we still don’t see the full picture,” said Ondřej Kundra of the Czech weekly Respekt, the journalist who broke the original story about the plot. “It’s hard to imagine the government would expel two Russian diplomats just because they said nasty things about each other.”

Was there a plot?

Details of an apparent plot first emerged in Czech weekly, Respekt, which reported that a Russian agent had travelled to Prague with a suitcase containing the highly potent toxin, ricin.

It claimed the poison might be used to target Czech politicians who had angered Russia. At the time Russia condemned the reports as “misinformation” and “sick fantasies”.

Czech TV then named the man involved as Andrei Konchakov, head of the Russian Centre for Science and Culture in Prague, and he rubbished the story saying he had merely brought “disinfectant and sweets” in his suitcase

Mr. Konchakov is one of the two diplomats ordered to leave, along with his deputy, Igor Rybakov, an official has told Ria Novosti.

The reports were taken seriously enough to send Ondrej Kolar, mayor of Prague’s sixth district, into hiding. He had ordered the removal of a statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev in Prague, angering Russia.

Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib had also annoyed Moscow by renaming a square next to the Russian embassy after murdered Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. Another mayor had backed a memorial to the anti-Soviet “Russian Liberation Army”.

Russian response

The Russian embassy in Prague dismissed the expulsion on its Facebook page as “provocation”.

“Based on ungrounded accusations in the media from the beginning, this hostile step shows Prague is not interested in normalising Russian-Czech relations, which have recently degraded, for which we cannot be blamed,” the embassy said.

“Russia will avoid a worsening of relations with the Czech Republic, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, commenting on press comments on the alleged preparation of an attack against Czech officials by Russia.

The Czech press reported the alleged arrival of a representative of the Russian security organs to eliminate officials responsible for dismantling a monument in Prague dedicated to Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev.

“We do not want tension in relations at all”, said Zakharova, who affirmed that everything possible is being done so that this does not happen, “since we depart from the fact that these links must be developed on the basis of mutual respect,” she said.

In addition, she considered strange the decision of the Czech government to rename Pod Kaštany Square, where the Russian embassy in Prague is located, in memory of the opposer Boris Nemtsov, organizer of protests against the Russian government in 2011 and who died the victim of an attack.

Commenting on information published by the Czech weekly journal Respekt regarding the alleged arrival in the Czech Republic of a Russian security official with the purpose of poisoning Prague municipal officials, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov called that version a sham.

The Prime Minister Andrej Babis, considered, for his part, that the expulsion of the Russian ambassador would not be necessary for anyway, because of the aforementioned information.

Moscow denounced at the time the intention of the Czech authorities to harm relations with Russia, insisting on the removal of the monument to Konev, even amid the limitations imposed by the coronavirus.

One of the Prague municipal leaders took advantage of the situation of the compulsory lockdown of the population to mobilize several workers and dismantle the aforementioned monument, dedicated to who is considered to be the liberator of then-Czechoslovakia from the Nazi occupation.