Czechia to return ambassador to Russia after break of several years

The Czech Republic will send an ambassador to Moscow in the coming months, the country’s foreign ministry announced Tuesday.

Relations between the countries have been strained in recent years due to an espionage scandal and Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Czechia’s previous ambassador to Russia, Vítězslav Pivoňka, who had performed the role from Prague since 2022, was recalled in May.

“Key countries that are strategic allies of Czechia — such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, and the United States — have ambassadors in Russia. I wish the ambassador much strength in this challenging mission to advance Czech interests,” Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavský said in a statement.

Daniel Koštoval, an experienced diplomat and former deputy defense minister, has been approved by Russia and will start his mission in early 2025.

Moscow’s relations with Prague worsened in 2021 when Czech special services discovered that Russia had been behind a series of explosions at Czech munitions warehouses in Vrbětice in 2014. The two countries reduced the number of diplomats at their embassies.

Prague had debated whether to keep an ambassador in Moscow during its military invasion of Ukraine, but President Petr Pavel said in March that it was still important to have representation in Russia at the ambassador level.

“Czechia maintains [its] representation in Russia at the Ambassador level all the time just like [the] majority of countries,” the Czech foreign ministry press service said in an email to POLITICO. “The previous Ambassador [Pivoňka] was [re]called to Prague for consultations and then the government decided on his successor as he [had been] in the office since 2018, which is significantly longer than the standard four years.”