Ukraine announced Friday that it was expelling two Czech embassy military attaches for spying in its military and arms trade business, in a scandal that adds to tense relations between the two states. Two attaches in the Czech embassy in Kiev have "used their diplomatic status as a cover for espionage activities, to collect information of military technical and military-political nature", the Ukrainian security service said in a statement read to journalists Friday.
Ukraine's foreign ministry said earlier Friday it had summoned the embassy's acting charge d'affaires and handed him an official note of protest. Chief of the military section at the Czech embassy, Zdenek Kubicek, and the military attache, Major Petra Novotna, have been declared personae non gratae.
Kubicek and Novotna worked with two Ukrainian informants one of which is an employee at an aviation plant identified to the public only as "S", security service spokeswoman Marina Ostapenko said at a briefing. 'S' met with Colonel Kubicek at the Czech embassy and various cafes, giving information about Ukraine's aerospace industry, such as programmes to develop the An-70 and An-178 transport planes, and copies of foreign contracts for airplane refurbishment, she said. He has now been arrested on charges of collecting and distributing confidential state information.
The other informant is a Ukrainian defence ministry employee "Major L", who was recruited by the Czech side in 2005 and was paid for giving copies of secret documents about activities in Ukraine's military schools. The security service showed journalists video of the moment the money was transferred to Ukrainian informants.