More Russian Espionage

Suddenly it seems that spies are everywhere. According Czech newspaper reports this week, three generals were dismissed from the Czech military last year because of contacts with an alleged Russian spy. Robert Rachardzo, also known as Robert R, worked as a psychologist with the Czech prison service. He could have been in regular contact with prisoners and theoretically could have helped them communicate with the outside world, the Czech online daily iDnes.cz writes. Rachardzo was reportedly using his close contacts with an army psychologist to obtain information from tree top-level generals. The generals were sacked but Rachardzo succeeded in fleeing to Russia before Czech authorities had a chance to arrest him. The Czech daily Mladá fronta Dnes broke the story on Wednesday, after receiving information from a “trustworthy source who knows the full details of the case”.

In a column accompanying the Mladá fronta story, Karel Pacner writes that Russian spies infiltrating the Czech military, as well as major businesses, is nothing new. Apparently the Czech Security Information Service has warned on several occasions recently about Moscow’s increasing espionage actvities in the Czech Republic over the last few years.