Russian agents are working to build opposition among the Czech public to the deployment of a US missile defence radar in the ex-Soviet bloc nation, a Czech intelligence report said Thursday.
The annual report from the Czech Security and Intelligence Service (BIS) spoke of "active measures linked to the plan to install elements of American anti-missile defence" in Czech territory.
Russian intelligence services attempted in 2007 to contact and infiltrate media, civil society and political bodies that "exert influence on public opinion", the report said.
It added that "Russian espionage activities in the Czech Republic are currently reaching a particularly high level of intensity."
"Put in a larger context, the objective includes creating the impression that we are seeing in Europe a rehabilitation of Nazism and a denial of the Soviet Union's role in the defeat of Nazism, under the patronage of the EU and NATO," according to the report.
Opinion polls have shown Czech citizens are largely against the US project, and the Czech parliament is still to approve it.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and his Czech counterpart Vlasta Parkanova signed an agreement last week clearing the way for stationing US forces to operate the missile defence radar.
The agreement came after years of negotiation over the radar, part of a European leg of the US missile defence system that has aroused intense Russian opposition.
The Czech radar would be paired with 10 interceptor missiles stationed in Poland with the aim of countering what the United States says is an emerging ballistic missile threat from "rogue" countries, such as Iran.
Moscow has vehemently objected to the stationing of the missile defences in the former Soviet bloc countries, insisting that it could one day be turned against Russia's nuclear deterrent.
