The Czech ammunition depot at the Poličské strojírny site in eastern Bohemia reported an explosion shortly before 9 am on March 25.

The cause of the explosion is currently unclear, but police said that a “technical issue” is “the most likely cause”.  

The country’s media reported one person seriously injured, and 11 firefighting units attending to the site.  

“Considering the dangerous nature of the environment, a third firefighting alert [on the scale of four] is declared,” the country’s firefighters wrote on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after 10 am, adding that one injured person has been evacuated and the units on-site are working on evacuating more.

“The injured person suffered very serious life-threatening injuries and was transported by air to the Olomouc hospital,” Alena Kisiala, a spokesperson for the emergency services in the region, told the country’s media.    

The explosion of the ammunition depot was reported at 8.54 am, according to Czech Radio, which noted that Poličské strojírny is part of the STV Invest holding, whose STV Group produces large calibre ammunition and re-fits military equipment and supplies spare particles at the Polička site. The company announced a press conference for the afternoon.   

Police said that nearby roads could be closed as the safety zone around the site is enforced.

Online news outlet Novinky.cz wrote that more firefighting units from the eastern Bohemian and western Moravian regions are rushing to the site equipped with specially armoured cisterns. The outlet also wrote that trinitrotoluene (TNT) is at the depot.

Czechia has a strong ammunition and weaponry production tradition, and its companies have been ramping up their production, much of which goes to Ukraine.  

The country also has a fresh memory of the 2014 ammunition depot explosions in Vrbětice near the border with Slovakia in which two persons were killed. Czech authorities later announced that it was proven that blasts were carried out by members of the special unit of the Russian intelligence GRU.    

The GRU’s involvement in the Vrbětice blasts was first openly discussed by the Czech authorities in the spring of 2021. 

The 2021 revelation caused a political sensation, transforming Czech-Russian relations, but at the time it was played down by the then populist President Milos Zeman, who sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and openly cast doubt on Czech intelligence's revelations.

In spring 2024, the country’s Minister of Interior Vít Rakušan told the public that “it is clearly and without any doubt proven by a police investigation that explosions at both depots in Vrbetice were carried out by members of the Russian military intelligence … known under the abbreviation GRU.”

Rakušan made the 2024 statement after Czech police shelved the Vrbětice investigation after Russian authorities refused to comply with the Czech requests.

The case reinvigorated media interest in the two GRU agents who are supposed to have been involved in the explosions and who are the same GRU agents involved in the notorious attempt at poisoning the double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in the UK – Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin.

General of Russian military intelligence Andrey Vladimirovich Averyanov is wanted by the Czech authorities for his role in the 2014 explosions.