Salisbury poisoning suspects 'linked to Czech blast'
Evidence links the 2014 explosion, and an attempted poisoning in Bulgaria, to a unit of Russian military intelligence - the GRU - the BBC has learnt.
European intelligence agencies believe the GRU's Unit 29155 is tasked with sabotage, subversion and assassination.
The Russian government said the claims were unfounded and absurd.
Czech authorities say they're expelling 18 Russian diplomats believed to be intelligence operatives in retaliation for the explosion, which killed two people.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the country had to react to revelations tying the blast to the GRU.
The country will inform Nato and European Union allies about its suspicions, and can discuss the matter at an EU foreign ministers' meeting on Monday, its acting secretary of state Jan Hamacek said.
The Russian foreign ministry said it might "take retaliatory measures which will force the authors of this provocation to completely understand their responsibility for destroying the inspiration of normal ties between our countries".
For Czech police, that included the October 2014 explosion. an important find, sources on the brink of the investigation have told the BBC, was an email sent to Imex Group, the corporate which operated the depot.
It claimed to return from the National Guard of Tajikistan. It asked for 2 men to tend access to the location for an inspection visit. Scans of their passports were attached. the lads were said to be Ruslan Tabarov from Tajikistan and Nicolaj Popa, a Moldovan citizen.
The pictures on the passports match those of the 2 men accused by Britain of the Salisbury poisoning.
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Salisbury link
The two men travelled to the united kingdom in March 2018 under the names Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov.
Both were caught on CCTV at Salisbury and identified by the Metropolitan Police as suspects in smearing Novichok nerve gas on the door handle of the house of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal.
Skripal and his daughter fell ill while an area woman, Dawn Sturgess, was killed months later by Novichok from a discarded perfume bottle.
The investigative site Bellingcat soon after identified Ruslan Boshirov as Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Petrov as Alexander Mishkin, both GRU officers.
The pair then appeared on Russian TV denying involvement, claiming they were sports nutritionists who visited Salisbury to ascertain the spire of the cathedral.
The commander of Unit 29155 was first reported by the ny Times to be Andrey Averyanov and he's believed to possess used Andrey Overyanov as a canopy identity.
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Unit 29155
Czech ministers pointed the finger specifically at Unit 29155. European intelligence officials say its mission is sabotage, subversion and assassination.
They think it numbers around 200 but with only 20 approximately of these involved in completing operations with the remainder support staff.
As well as Salisbury, Bulgaria and now the Czech Republic , the unit has been linked to other operations including an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016.
A number of European countries are investigating past visit see if it correlates with suspicious events. meaning this revelation might not be the last.
The pair involved in Salisbury and now linked to the Czech explosion haven't been seen since they were identified in 2018. But Unit 29155, western intelligence officials say, remains active.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the united kingdom stands "in full support of our Czech allies, who have exposed the lengths that the Russian intelligence services will attend in their attempts to conduct dangerous and malign operations in Europe".
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