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President Miloš Zeman appointed Jakub Kulhánek foreign minister at Prague Castle on Wednesday afternoon.  Mr. Kulhánek, who previously served as deputy interior minister, takes office amid a deepening crisis in Czech-Russian relations over the involvement of the Russian secret service in the deadly 2014 munition blasts at the Vrbětice depot.  His predecessor in office Tomáš Petříček of the Social Democrats was dismissed after making an unsuccessful bid for the party leadership. Party leader and deputy prime minister, Jan Hamáček, stepped in as acting foreign minister during the c...

Jakub Kulhánek appointed foreign minister

Acting foreign minister Jan Hamáček says discussions about the Czech Republic obtaining the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine are no longer on the table in view of the current situation. Mr. Hamáček told reporters on Monday that the only route for the country was to focus on vaccines that had been approved by the European Medicines Agency. The minister had just last week announced a trip to Moscow, scheduled for Monday, to discuss Sputnik V. He later said this had been a smokescreen intended to help keep secret plans to expel Russian Embassy staff identified as spies.

Russia expels 20 Czech diplomats in tit-for-tat move

Follow RT on Authorities in Prague have said they believe a 2014 blast at an ammunition depot was accidental, but doubled down on previous claims that Russian special services were involved as part of a plot to destroy arms exports to Ukraine. On Sunday, the Ceske Noviny news site reported the comments from Czech interior minister Jan Hamáček, who said that there was still sufficient evidence to claim Moscow's spies were behind the incident. However, he is said to have confirmed that police are working on the theory that the ammunition was supposed to blow up once it had been shippe...