Jaroslav Spurný: Vrbětice – Russian Operation

In the book Vrbětice: ruská operace, která změnila Česko (Vrbětice: the Russian Operation that Changed Czechia), Jaroslav Spurný, an investigative journalist with the weekly Respekt, tells the gripping story of journalists' search for the perpetrators of explosions at the Vrbětice ammunition depot. Based on facts and circumstantial evidence, the book links the 2014 attack by a Russian intelligence unit on Czech territory – which resulted in two casualties and huge material damage – to the Kremlin’s interest in clawing back influence in the former satellites of the former Soviet Union, including the Czech Republic. The author describes not only the domestic investigation of the Vrbětice case, but also the related activities of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, from the time of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia to the present day.