Josef Pazderka

Foto: Jaroslav Hodík

Last week the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed ČT’s reporter in Russia, Josef Pazderka, that his press accreditation would not be renewed and that he must leave the country by the end of March.

The Russian Foreign Ministry claims the move is reciprocity for Czech authorities’ refusal to renew the press accreditation of Vladimir Silkin, a correspondent for Parlamenskaya gazeta, the Russian parliament’s official daily publication.

Vladimir Fedrov, spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Prague, told CBW that he had no information why the Russian Foreign Ministry decided that Pazderka would not be allowed to continue his assignment in Russia, adding that the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MZV) had still not provided the Russian authorities with an explanation for Silkin’s de facto expulsion. “I don’t know why they expelled the Parlamentskaya gazeta reporter and not someone from [news agency] Interfax for example. But there’s nothing stopping ČT from sending another reporter,” Fedrov replied when asked if he considers Pazderka’s expulsion to be disproportionate.

 “Česká televize reporters have repeatedly been used as instruments of reciprocation for the actions taken by the Czech authorities against supposed Russian journalists,” Jiří Janeček, ČT’s managing director, said in a statement. He also announced that the channel would not send another reporter, thus suspending the channel’s representation in Russia.

Pazderka is the second ČT journalist to have his accreditation withdrawn by the Russian authorities. Jan Moláček was ordered out of Russia in 2006 following the MZV’s decision not to renew the accreditation of Leonid Svidirov, a correspondent with Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

“Česká televize has decided not to send any reporter to Russia until it is certain that the planned assignment of a reporter will not be forcibly curtailed by the Russian side,” ČT spokesman Ladislav Šticha said. He told CBW that ČT will use agency material and “international exchange agreements” to provide coverage of events in Russia, Pazderka’s assignment in Russia was due to finish at the end of 2010. Šticha said that ČT has never been criticized by any Russian state authorities for its coverage of events in the country.     

According to the list of accredited foreign journalists on the site of the Russian foreign ministry, following Pazderka’s departure, three accredited Czech journalists will remain in Russia: Lenka Kabrhelová of public radio station Český rozhlas (Czech radio), Milan Syruček of the Czech News Agency (ČTK), and Jaroslava Maliková of a magazine called Novoe Mesto. Enquiries yielded no information about this publication and the contact phone number was out of service, therefore only Kabrhelová and Syruček can be considered active. For comparison, nine journalists and reporters with Polish media outlets are accredited in Russia.        

Target of Russia’s interest

Although there has been no confirmation from the Czech authorities, reports in the Czech press quoting unnamed sources in the country’s security services suggest both Svidirov and Silkin were suspected of or implicated in espionage activities. Parlamentskaya gazeta’s PR representative Maria Matveyeva told CBW that the publication now has one foreign correspondent in the Baltic States. All other personnel, including the foreign news editor, refused to divulge any information about the publication’s foreign reporting activities and why they deemed it necessary to post a correspondent to Prague and not to Brussels or Washington, for example.    

Although the Czech authorities made no official announcements about the expulsion of Sidirov and Silikin, nor about the two Russian diplomats expelled in 2009, the Security Information Service (BIS) in its last published report—the annual report for 2008, which was published in September 2009—says that Russian intelligence agents are by far the most active in the country and are the center of attention of BIS counter-espionage activities. “The assumption that Russia has returned to soviet practices of active [espionage] measures as an instrument to implement Russia’s foreign-political interests in the world has been confirmed,” the report states. 

“We can say for sure that they [Russian intelligence services] have continued to strengthen their influence over our economic structures … also in the field of science and technology, and have enlarged their channels and sources of information that are active in our country,” BIS spokesman Jan Šubert said in a recent interview with Český rozhlas.

The BIS says that Russian agents have been active in courting contacts, knowingly or unknowingly, with Czech politicians, mainly for economic purposes. The 2008 report names the privatization of Prague Ruzyně Airport operator Letiště Praha as an example of interests attempting to acquire information from state organs in order to gain an advantage in the privatization tender. Although Russian agents are not named, there was Russian interest in entering the privatization tender for the airport, which has since been cancelled.          

“Intelligence work is a long-distance run, and there’s information that could be extremely useful in, say, 10 or 15 years. And for the Russian intelligence service, Central Europe isn’t a far-off place where events can just be observed passively,” Šubert said.