PRAGUE – It began with the dismantling of a statue of a Russian World War II hero and the renaming of a Prague square.
Now three of the Czech capital's mayors are under police protection, fearing they are the targets of a Russian assassin carrying a deadly toxin, and Russian-Czech relations are in crisis. “There’s a Russian here whose goal is to liquidate me,” Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar said recently in a television interview from a secret hideout.
In the week in which the Allies mark the 75th anniversary of victory over the Nazis in Europe, relations between Prague and Moscow are taking a turn for the worse amid what the Czechs see as Russia’s growing assertiveness over its interpretation of history.