Russia says COVID-19 pandemic does not enable top-level negotiations with Prague

Russia is ready to hold negotiations on diffusing tension between Prague and Moscow at the level of deputy foreign ministers, but the coronavirus pandemic does not allow the scheduling of a meeting for the present time, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Russian news agency TASS. She said Moscow currently favoured a meeting of special envoys.

The press secretary of Vladimir Putin recently described Czech-Russian relations as “muddy” saying  the Russian government had no plans for high-level contacts with the Czech Republic in the near future. Czech-Russian relations have been increasingly strained in recent months by a the row over the statue of Soviet marshal Ivan Konev, a bogus information plot in which the Czech counter-intelligence service BIS was fed information that a Russian agent had been sent to Prague to kill elected Prague officials and the subsequent mutual expulsion of diplomats.