The two Russians suspected of carrying out the Novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018 in Salisbury are accused of organising a fatal explosion in the Czech Republic four years earlier.
Czech police issued photos of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who were in the country when the blast at an arms depot killed two people.
The Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats, sparking the biggest dispute between the nations since the revolution in 1989.
The matter will be discussed tomorrow at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. The pair are believed to part of the Russian intelligence unit the GRU.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “The UK stands in full support of our Czech allies, who have exposed the lengths that the GRU will go to in their attempts to conduct dangerous and malign operations – and highlights a disturbing pattern of behaviour following the attack in Salisbury.”
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In 2018 the pair were identified by Britain as being behind the attempted murder of double agent Skripal, 69, and daughter Yulia, 33, on March 4 by smearing Novichok on the door handle of their home in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Last night a senior Russian parliamentarian called the Czech claim “absurd”.
(Image: Grab / Russia Today)
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the country had to react to revelations tying the blast on October 16 in Vrbetice to the GRU. He said: “There is a reasonable suspicion Russian secret agents of the GRU service were involved.”
Pictures of the two accused men issued by Czech police match those put out by UK police. It emerged they were called Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, both GRU agents.
The Skripals survived but Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after she came into contact with a discarded perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack.
Moscow has denied involvement.