I didn’t comment the story at the time because it seemed so absurd on the face of it, but who knows?
“The entire case came into being as a result of internal feuding among workers at the embassy… with one of them sending made-up information to our (counterintelligence service) about a planned attack on Czech politicians,” Babis said in a statement carried live on television.
“We are interested in having good relations with all countries, but we are a sovereign state and such actions are unacceptable on our territory.”
Three politicians including the mayor of Prague were given police protection after reports that a Russian man who could be a threat to them had arrived to Prague.
The Russian Embassy denounced the decision announced by Babis as a “fabricated provocation”.
Fact of the matter is, Russian intelligence services are not cool enough (and perhaps not competent enough, either) to take out hits on foreign Russophobes.
Who are a dime a dozen, anyway.
Here are some of the widely-followed Twitter accounts, who spread the false story. pic.twitter.com/WZfRqZHR50
— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) June 5, 2020
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Why in the world would PUTLER want to have that Pirate Party mayor whacked?
For the Konev statue that was taken down in April?
Seems to me that there is status on the line for individuals of the russophobic creed. Plenty of incentives to be the victim of nebulous threats seemingly from the Kremlin. Not a lot of risk that they will come to fruition.
Despite admitting that the story is fake, Czech government ordered two Russian embassy staff out of the country.
The best online comment I’ve seen at the beginning of this story, before Czech admission, was that Russian secret services fight terrorists all over the world, but cannot be bothered with idiots. So, the mayor of Prague is safe.
Quite an elaborate hoax (false flag?) perpetrated by the “Czech government” to eviscerate two staff members at the Russian embassy. Any reasons given as to why these two Russians were considered “persona non grata”?
Surely it can’t be that hard, if the FSB decided to assassinate someone like Zuckerberg or Soros then having a sniper at some public event should be doable.
Isn’t Babis pretty good on the migration/nationality preservation issue? Too bad he got mixed up in this. By the way what are his general feelings vis a vis Putler.
Why a sniper?
When in Rome….
When in Prague: Defenestration, of course.
Babiš is is pretty good on anything that will keep him in power and able to continue financially looting the country. He has no discernible ideological commitments whatsoever nor, as a Slovak, any particular Czech national feeling. As only a tiny minority of Czechs want anything to do with mass migration (those who do are represented by the political faction allegedly targeted by this phantom Russian plot), it suits him well to play the patriot here. He has maintained the stance toward migration of the previous Social Democratic government from the 2015 refugee happening era, and there is no real reason to believe policy would be greatly different under any other realistically viable Czech government.
As for the expulsions, the inordinately large size of the Russian diplomatic delegations in Prague and Brno has been a long-standing beef of successive Czech governments, and they have been using any pretext to whittle down the numbers in recent years.
Two “Wild & Crazy” Chech Bros:
https://youtu.be/YGv6uo89yMY
Even as a local boy, I cannot quite untangle the purpose of this elaborate hoax. Nobody, but genuine idiots believe here the initial hoax published in a crap journal called Respect. The founders could have called the rag ”Pravda” but that was not a very fashionable name shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. My explanation is that a prankster fed a the story, similar to the Skripal’s case in the UK, to a fool possibly Kundra (sounds a bit like ”kunda”,meaning a cunt in Czech) who spread it around targeting other fools of the incompetent agency BIS (a local version of the CIA, or rather its branch) and to wait how this idiocy will slowly spread around to make fools of various politicians who had to take a stance and make public statements about it. Thanks to the opportunism of the Czech politicians, who because of some higher authority may have ordered them so, had to pretend that it was all a genuine assassination attempt of three local clowns, even though they most likely suspected that it was a hoax from the very start. Those entrapped, look like fools now but they cannot retract their former statements for various reasons. In my humble opinion, this is one of the many steps to prepare the Czechs for a future war with Russia.
It also helps the mayor of Prague to divert public attention away from his inability to fix the decaying infrastructure. His predecessor is politically dead because of the same problem.
I too fear that “this is one of the many steps to prepare the Czechs for a future war with Russia”.
Well, the good soldier Švejk (Schweik) was sent to war by multinational state/empire, the war against Russia and Serbs, btw. Švejk surely could not identify himself with the war, army and the state he had to serve for. Trolling is understandable option then. Such situation regrettably cannot be excluded in the future given the sometimes ridiculous propaganda and politics of the West. I believe that most (not only) Czechs would in such unreasonable wars recall the Švejk practice. It is superficial to attribute the national character to Švejks behaviour in general.
Commenting more seriously – Jaroslav Hašek took part in the war too and lately took part in Czech/Czechoslovak legions who fought rather succesfully in Western and mainly Eastern front, later fighting with bolsheviks to get home, helping to establish the sovereign state, btw. The story of Hašek is even more interesting as he was later inspired by communist ideology to the degree that he switched the sides and served as a commander of bolsheviks troops for a while.
And most seriously: The Austrian empire which decided century before WW1 to rely on inner and outter (Reich) Germans with their anti-Czech sentiment and oppression as at that time most economically and culturally developed nation of its Slavic majority, chose this option itself which probably was the reason for it collapse. If the Empire was wiser, we would probably celebrate rather Czech soldiers fighting well in its army perhaps in succesfull defence against turkish invasions, being represented for example by field marshal Radetzky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Radetzky_von_Radetz
Just a note of mistaken Western politics leading now to absurd situations like the present “Russiang agent with poison in Prague”.
Is sounds like have read some Hašek (my congratulation) but as you may have noticed, it not easy reading and much more difficult to understand for someone not quite familiar with “K und K” role in the first world war. Švejk is a chameleon-like man who tries to survive by adapting to whatever is the momentary situation, a rather useful ability in any war. He makes fools of people but, the then unknown concept of a troll, is not the best description of his character. I do not understand the detour to Kundera’s novel, unless you want to impress the reader with your knowledge of Czech literature. It is also great that you can write a short sentence in French, but what should Mr. Karlin understand is a mystery. Can you elaborate on this in a few more sentences in impeccable french just to dispel my suspicion that you are also a troll.
I read a lot of Hašek when I was a kid.
We had the complete collection of his writings at home in a Russian translation.
I am well aware of his biography, which included a marriage with a Russian emigrant lady.
I absolutely love Hašek’s type of humor and even today Бравый солдат Швейк is one of my favorite characters in the worldwide literature.
Moreover, I have mainly positive feelings towards the Czechs for two additional reasons:
1) České pivo
2) Рečené vepřové koleno
Finally, Prague is a wonderful city and I truly hope Russian tanks will never need coming back to it again just because Czech politicians have once more relied on Western European “wisdom” in their approach towards world affairs.
ano4, good to read that. No reason to take Czechs seriously. Most, I know, do not do it either and thus rather differ from other, more self appreciating nations, that are fond of starting wars. I find the label troll somewhat misleading as it had prior to the invention of internet, no other meaning than a pixie or a gnome. I remember that Private Eye used to write about the ”gnomes of Zurich” as of real people but these bankers were not famous for any literary contributions. The word troll has in Czech no other meaning than a wanker abusing himself all over the internet. Hašek would have probably laughed if you called him a troll, but without understanding what you mean by that. Can you think of another, perhaps more honorable expression? Hašek’s literary contributions are in essence, recipes for life. One can learn from him how to steal a dog, how to choose a prostitute, how to make a strong punch and many other useful things.
Exactly. This guy is typical post-Soviet oligarch, who reinvented himself as “patriot”.
(he himself is of Slovak-German-Hungarian origins, without one drop of “Czech blood”, as usual)
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=cs&u=https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodina_Andreje_Babi%25C5%25A1e&prev=search
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/the-rights-human-capital-problem/
The rightist Swine is a nominally conservative type who is openly promoting traditional values such as God, homeland and family but in reality he’s a treacherous calculated Machiavellian type of low moral virtue, high time preference and low loyalty. The same way a leftist activist is constantly talking about the oppressed proletariat and while raising his own political power and enriching himself with other people’s money, the Swine of the Right is constantly talking about the virtue of raising a family, the depth of his faith and the love of his homeland, and at the same time using every possible opportunity to raise his political power and wealth in the most corrupt and criminal way possible, regardless of the consequence to the things he nominally holds dear. The Swine usually has very little manners, and behaves like a brute despite of his education. In short, The Swine is a swindler and a charlatan who successfully uses right wing rhetoric to expand his wealth and political power. In a way, he is either a communist apparatchik who successfully replaced the hammer and a sickle with the cross or the village brute who finds it very convenient to sit in the first row on a Sunday mass.
It is not a problem with decaying infrastructure, as you mentioned, but more likely with accusations of corruption. Hřib could be blackmailed by someone who knows more about his past activities. Unfortunately, I have no concrete evidence.
I am not quite certain whether Babiš can be described as “the Swine of the Right”. He is more like an eel with no clear political orientation or ideology. He is neither a family man, nor a religious or nationalist extremist. Babiš does not promote family virtues as he is divorced and has schizophrenic son who lives in Switzerland. Although he speaks four other languages he has not quite mastered Czech. Hence, he is smart enough not to play the nationalist card as people would laugh at him. Babiš spends most of his time trying to deflect accusations of corruption and enriching himself.