Bombay Durpun - Police probe firebomb attack on Russian centre in Prague

The Russian Centre for Science and Culture opened in 1971 when former Czechoslovakia was ruled by Moscow-steered communists.

"Since Thursday evening we have been probing an attack during which someone threw several Molotov cocktails at the Russian House," police said on X.

They said they were seeking the perpetrator who is suspected of criminal mischief.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labelled the attack as a "barbaric act" in a comment to state-run TASS news agency.

"We regard this as a terrorist attack against our Rossotrudnichestvo centre, against Russian property," added Pavel Shevtsov, deputy head of the Russian international cultural agency Rossotrudnichestvo running the centre.

"It was a planned, deliberate attack," he added.

Russian House head Igor Girenko told TASS that three out of six Molotov cocktails thrown inside the building in Prague's broader centre did not explode "by a fortunate coincidence".

The building seeks to promote Russian culture, history and language and is also frequented by Russians living in the Czech Republic.

Prague has declined to acknowledge it as a diplomatic building to Moscow's dismay, suspecting the centre of spreading Russian propaganda.

Russia labelled the Czech Republic an "unfriendly" state in 2021, shortly before invading Ukraine in February 2022.

That year, Czech intelligence accused Moscow of being behind a series of blasts in 2014 at an ammunition depot in the eastern Czech Republic which claimed two lives.

They occurred just months after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in early 2014.

The announcement sparked a massive mutual expulsion of dozens of diplomats and other embassy staff.

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R.Kohli--BD