Russia to try to prevent approval of defence deal with US – Czech Intelligence

WORLD  30 May 2023 - 16:59

Czech intelligence believes Russia will try to prevent the approval of a security cooperation agreement between the US and the Czech Republic.

Chief of the Czech Security Information Service Michal Koudelka made the remarks during a conference in the lower chamber of the Czech parliament on 29 May, as reported by European Pravda, citing Euractiv.

The US and Czech defence ministers in Washington recently signed a defence treaty to strengthen cooperation between the two countries. However, the document still needs to be approved by the Czech parliament.

"It can be assumed that the Russians will use all their means, including hard disinformation, even of a personal or even intimate nature, a fifth column in our country and so on, to prevent the approval of this agreement," Koudelka said.

Several other European countries have also signed bilateral security cooperation agreements with the United States. This agreement has been the target of a disinformation campaign in Slovakia and has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and the public.

Koudelka pointed out that this type of disinformation can reduce public morale and undermine NATO's unity. He believes we can expect to see increasingly sophisticated disinformation in the future.

He noted that this would be related to technology's development and greater availability, especially texts generated by artificial intelligence.

"The Russians can monitor our telephone communications. They have sufficient technical means to do so, located in the premises of the Russian Embassy in Prague," Koudelka stated.

Background: Earlier, Czech President Petr Pavel called for efforts to be kept up to defeat Russia in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, former Defence Minister Jaroslav Nagy said that Slovak intelligence services had exposed Russia's attempt to rig the upcoming parliamentary elections in favour of the Smer-SD party.

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