Lithium information and disinformation

Prague Security Studies Institute, co-founded by the Havel-era head of the ÚZSI foreign-intelligence service, Oldřich Černý, analyzed the lithium affair and cited it as evidence that Czech society is unable to defend against Russian disinformation. PSSI's premise is that pre-election reports that ČSSD wanted to "tunnel" the CR's lithium supplies were untrue. PSSI first reached this conclusion in mid-Nov. and repeated the claim yesterday. In between these two dates, ex-Industry Min. Jan Mládek told Deník about a phone call he had from lawyer Radek Pokorný and a request from the Chinese for a cabinet guarantee that the privatization of Škoda Transportation was clean. Mládek said that his successor as minister, Jiří Havlíček, received the lithium memorandum as a similar task and that he sees Havlíček's signature on the document as a problem. This is not disinformation: This is an ex-minister of ČSSD confirming that there was some basis for the lithium scandal.