Donald Tusk. Photo: EPA-EFE/Leszek Szymanski
Polish law enforcement has arrested nine people suspected of carrying out sabotage under orders from the Russian secret services, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on TV channel TVN24 on Monday.
According to Tusk, the Russian secret services had instructed the arrested men to commit acts of arson in Poland, with one such attempt targeting a paint factory in the city of Wrocław, in the west of the country. He also said that those arrested had physically attacked Polish citizens, including witnesses in court cases and people with government jobs.
Those arrested were a combination of Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish citizens, some of whom were recruited by the Russian secret services via their criminal connections, Tusk added.
Tusk announced that a newly formed commission would investigate the influence of Russian intelligence officers in Poland and that an additional 100 million złotys (€23.5 million) to fight Russian influence would be allocated to the budget of the Polish intelligence services.
According to Tusk, Russian saboteurs had also targeted Latvia and Lithuania and that the three countries were now working together to combat the threat, adding that Sweden had also warned of Russian sabotage attempts on its territory.
In April, two men were arrested in Poland in connection to a hammer attack on Leonid Volkov, an exiled ally of slain Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
