The Czech Republic's counterintelligence agency says its politicians are ignoring Russian threats
By B.C. | PRAGUE
LATELY the Czech Republic has become one of the weaker links in Europe's efforts to punish Russia for its interference in Ukraine. For months, critics, especially in Poland and the Baltic states, have accused Czech leaders of insufficient vigilance against Russian aggression. Now one of the country’s own intelligence services is doing the same. In an annual report released October 27th, the Czech Republic’s counterintelligence agency, known by the Czech-language acronym BIS, accuses governing elites of "asymmetric indifference to the issue of security risks from Russia and China".
The Czech government supported the EU's imposition of sanctions early this year, after Russia annexed Crimea, but over time it has grown lukewarm towards confronting Moscow. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and his defence minister have rejected any idea of stationing NATO troops in the country in response to the Ukrainian crisis. In September, Mr Sobotka resisted EU moves to toughen sanctions, warning they could hurt Europe without affecting Russian behaviour. This leeriness towards provoking Moscow aligns the Czechs with Hungary and Slovakia, which are even more sceptical of tough sanctions. But it has opened up a rift with pro-sanctions Poland, paralysing the Visegrad Group, the loose alliance which unites the four countries. Last month, Czech President Milos Zeman raised hackles further with a speech at the Rhodes Forum, an event sponsored by the Kremlin-backed oligarch Vladimir Yakunin, in which he called—in Russian—for dropping the sanctions altogether.
Mr Zeman does not control Czech foreign policy, and as the BIS report makes clear, some elements in the Czech state take a much less benign view of today's Russia. The report covers counterintelligence activities for the year 2013, so it does not include any fallout from this year's crisis in Ukraine. Nonetheless, the BIS says, “In the case of the Russian diplomatic mission in 2013, the number of intelligence officers under diplomatic cover was extremely high.” Other Russian operatives travelled to the country as tourists, experts, academics, and businessmen. This is to be expected from any country's intelligence service, and previous BIS reports have noted similar activites. But the censorious inflection of this year’s edition is striking. “The Cold War and the Soviet Union are in the past," the BIS says at one point, "but not the Russian passion for influential and active measures (including illegal agents).”
Interestingly, the BIS report also includes a new emphasis on China. Both Russia and China are accused of using “divide and rule tactics” targeting “the Czech Republic, EU and NATO”. Given Mr Zeman's trip this week to China, in which he vocally supported Beijing's territorial claims over both Tibet and Taiwan, one might gather such tactics are paying off.
If the Czech Republic's president and its intelligence services seem to be at loggerheads over how to treat Russia, that reflects an ongoing division in the country's political establishment. As far back as April, Vaclav Klaus, the country's former president, wrote an essay defending Russia's annexation of Crimea. More recently, a former Czech foreign minister told a German newspaper that the EU should supply weapons to Ukraine, and said he was “afraid we will bitterly regret this lack of resolve”. Mr Sobotka promptly responded that his government had no interest in supplying Kiev with arms. Meanwhile, Czech MPs from no less than five different parties are preparing for a friendly visit to the Russian Duma in early November. The BIS may accuse Czech politicians of “asymmetric indifference” towards security threats from Russia, but Czech politicians themselves seem to be rather symmetrically divided.
