Russian extremists attack Czech embassy in Moscow over Prague's removal of Konev statue

Prague/Moscow, April 6 (CTK) – The embassy of the Czech Republic in Moscow sent an official note to Russian diplomacy today in protest against an extremist attack on the embassy over the removal of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev’s statue from a Prague square, the Czech Foreign Ministry has said.

A masked group put a Stop Fascism sign on the embassy’s fence and threw several smoke bombs over the fence on Sunday. No one was arrested during the incident.

The Czech Foreign ministry confirmed the information of the Russian REN TV saying the incident had been a reaction to the removal of Konev’s memorial.

Russia is obliged to protect the embassy, Czech diplomacy said.

“The Czech Republic is protesting against the attack on its diplomatic mission’s compound that the host country is obliged to protect,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Stichova told CTK, adding that the embassy in Moscow sent an official note to the Russian Foreign Ministry in this respect.

“We expect the Russian authorities to take steps to prevent similar incidents from repeating,” she added.

The non-registered far-right and nationalistic party The Other Russia claimed responsibility for the sign. “Our tanks will be in Prague,” the party writes on its website.

The Other Russia, whose adherents call themselves national Bolsheviks, follows the legacy of the recently deceased controversial politician Eduard Limonov (1943-2020), one of the main ideologists of the Russian nationalist left wing.

The party writes that it was an answer to the Czech authorities that removed Konev’s statue, which was a part of a general strategy of European nations aimed to revise the results of World War Two. It added that when the Czech authorities reject the fact that the Soviet nation defeated Nazism, they move towards Nazism themselves.

The Other Russia calls on the Russian Foreign Ministry to take diplomatic and, if necessary, other steps that will show the European colleagues that Russophobia (anti-Russian sentiment) will not stay unpunished.

The photographs on the website show that four masked men in black put the sign on the fence.

REN TV said the police are searching for the perpetrators.

On Friday, the Prague 6 Town Hall removed the statue of Konev, who helped liberate Prague from the Nazis but also assisted in the bloody suppression of the Hungarian anti-communist uprising in the mid-1950s. The Czech Communist Party (KSCM), President Milos Zeman and Russia, through its embassy in Prague, sharply protested against the removal of the statue.