ROB CAMERON

In 2018 allegations were made by a former Czechoslovak spy that the then opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had been a paid informer for the country’s communist era secret police, the StB. Mr Corbyn emphatically denied the claims, but a few sheaves of old paper still have the power to throw lives into turmoil.

Czech counter-intelligence has issued stark warnings of intensified espionage activity by Russia and China. Both countries are pursuing a long-term strategy of undermining the West, according to the Security Information Service (BIS). Moscow has continued its hybrid warfare strategy to gain influence over this EU and Nato member, it says.

A Czech politician in hiding amid allegations of a Russian assassination plot says he believes the threat against him is credible and he fears for his life. Three Prague politicians are under 24-hour police guard because of the alleged plot to poison them – claims categorically denied by Moscow. The BBC spoke to him from an undisclosed location under police guard.

Czech-Russian relations were already chilly before the invasion of Ukraine; today they are icy, verging on frozen. Revelations that Moscow’s notorious GRU spy agency had blown up a Czech arms dump in 2014 led to a spate of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. The annual flashpoint is the anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia – or rather the eastern two-thirds of it.