Ukrainians working for Russia were behind rail blasts, says Polish PM | Poland

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Polish authorities have identified two Ukrainians who allegedly worked for Russian intelligence services as the prime suspects in two railway sabotage cases.

The men allegedly planted a military-grade explosive and attached a steel clamp to railway tracks in two incidents along a strategic railway route used for aid deliveries to Ukraine.

Tusk said the explosive exploded under a freight train on Saturday night, causing minor damage to its undercarriage and damaging the rails, posing a risk to other trains using that route.

Speaking in the Polish parliament on Tuesday, Tusk said the two incidents were “unprecedented” and “perhaps the most serious situation since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine when it comes to the security of the Polish state.”

“We are faced with an act of sabotage that could have a consequence, and the mistake of the perpetrators of this act also helped us… a serious disaster with loss of life. That’s why I say that a certain line has been crossed,” he said.

“We are confident that in both cases the attempt to blow up the tracks and the breach of rail infrastructure were deliberate and their aim was to cause a rail disaster,” he said.

These, he said, were part of a broader pattern of acts and acts of sabotage against Russian services not only in Poland but throughout Europe. [which] Unfortunately, it is gaining momentum.”

The suspects, whose identities are known to Polish authorities but have not been made public, are thought to have arrived in Poland from Belarus shortly before the attacks and returned to Belarus shortly afterwards.

Tusk said one of the two men had previously been convicted of sabotage in Ukraine, while the other came from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Donetsk region.

The prime minister said the recruitment of Ukrainian citizens by Russia served to “possibly radically incite anti-Ukrainian sentiment” and was “especially dangerous” in countries such as Poland, which host large communities of Ukrainian immigrants and refugees.

The claim that the suspects fled to Belarus emerged just a day after Poland opened two border gates with the country, which had been closed for years due to political tensions. Poland cited economic reasons for opening the checkpoints.

At the Bobrowniki crossing on Tuesday, several dozen trucks were waiting on the Polish side to cross into Belarus.

Poland has faced a series of sabotage attempts and cyber attacks in recent months, with officials in the country often blaming Russia. Tusk said Polish authorities detained 55 people in connection with such crimes, while 23 people were arrested for acts of sabotage.

Court files reviewed by the Guardian showed the perpetrators were recruited, often via the secure messaging app Telegram, by accounts believed to be run by Russian intelligence, which promised them money to carry out arson or other tasks.

Following the expulsion from Europe of hundreds of Russian spies operating under diplomatic cover following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia is believed to be increasingly turning to such “one-off” operations.

Russian services use the same tactic in Ukraine; teenagers are unwittingly recruited as suicide bombers, paid to transport packages containing explosives and detonated remotely when the courier approaches a police station or other sensitive area.

However, the unclear chain of command for such attacks and the difficulty of figuring out exactly who is at the end of the Telegram chat often makes it difficult to prove beyond a doubt that Russia was involved.

Regarding this week’s attacks, authorities have not yet disclosed what evidence they have gathered to support the claim that Russia was responsible for the attack.

Poland is understood to be working on strong diplomatic responses against Belarus and Russia, with foreign minister Radosław Sikorski saying he will demand the countries work with Polish authorities and hand over suspects.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the accusations and said they were another example of Poland’s “Russophobia.”