Two Ukrainian citizens working on behalf of Russian intelligence entered Poland earlier this year and set explosive charges on a strategic rail line used by Europe to supply war materiel to Kyiv for the defence of the nation against the Russian invasion, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. Expressing the latest on the investigation into what has been called a “terror attack” against the nation by Russian spies, Tusk said the pair were able to make the short journey to the Belarussian border to disappear into the Moscow-puppet country after the attack.
Both saboteurs are already known to security services, he said, and according to the information released from Poland so far, appear to be from pro-Russian regions of Ukraine. Tusk told his parliament on Tuesday: “The individuals we suspect, one of them, was convicted by a court in Lviv in May of this year, a Ukrainian citizen . He was convicted of acts of sabotage in Ukraine and resides in Belarus. The other is a resident of Donbas . He also crossed from Belarus to Poland with the first suspect this fall, just before the attacks”.
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According to the sequence of events laid out by Tusk, the first blast took place on Sunday at approximately 2140 near the town of Mika, on the Warsaw to Lublin railway. Locals called police to report the sound of an explosion and searched the area for an hour. During this time, it is claimed the two suspects were making the three-hour drive to the Belarussian border to escape near the city of Brest-Litovsk.
It is now stated the explosion took place under a passing freight train and that the presumed intent of the attack was to derail it, taking the line out of service. Although powerful C4 explosives were used, the quantity was either insufficient or mis-applied, as the damage was comparatively minor and the break in the track was only discovered by a passing passenger train early the following morning.
Investigators also stated it was their belief the attack had been botched, and the survival of some equipment allowed them to quickly identify the alleged perpetrators. Polsat News reported prosecutor spokesman Przemysław Nowak who said: “We secured a number of pieces of evidence at the scene. These traces will help us identify the perpetrators and then bring them to justice. A cable that was most likely used to ignite the explosion was found in Garwolin county”.
Polish newspaper Fakt reports Tusk increased the terrorism threat alert for strategic Polish railways from two to three, on a scale of four. He said: “We are dealing with an unprecedented event. This is perhaps the most serious situation for Poland’s security since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine”. Tusk said as well as trying to slow the delivery of aid to Urkaine, Russia was also trying to sow “social and political consequences”.
These would include “disorganisation, chaos, panic, speculation, uncertainty” and even stirring up “anti-Ukrainian sentiment” among Poles.
Intelligence agencies spokesman Jacek Dobrzyński added that the evidence retrieved so far points to a “purely terrorist attack” initiated by Russian intelligence, and earlier in the day Poland’s defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said “all traces lead east, to Russia”. He added that Poland and Russia exist in “a state between war and peace, where we have attacks, acts of sabotage, disinformation on a gigantic scale on the internet, the destruction, or attempts at destruction, of critical infrastructure across the whole of Europe”.
Russia, for its part, has denied responsibility and called its being blamed an inevitable consequence of what it calls “Russophobia” in Poland. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, after Poland’s Tusk made the accusations that Russian intelligence was behind the bombing, that: “It would have been strange if Russia wasn’t the first one they pointed the finger at… Russia is always blamed for every manifestation of the hybrid and direct war”.
The Kremlin, citing the sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines, further accused Poland of “covering for Ukrainian saboteurs” and in doing so were “playing with fire”. Russian state media also promulgated a claim that the bombing could have been the work of Poland’s own security forces.
As earlier reported, the Ukraine war has heavily involved infrastructure sabotage from its very earliest days, and the Poland railway bombing conforms to now-years of precedent, with Warsaw having arrested 55 alleged Russian saboteurs on its territory since the conflict began. As stated:
Energy and logistical infrastructure have been particular targets and not just in Ukraine and Russia themselves, including mysteries such as the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline serving northern Europe with Russian gas exports, to recent blasts at the largest oil refinery in Hungary, processing imported Russian product.
Railways have been a key target, including in Poland. As reported in 2023, Poland convicted 14 “Russian spies” including alleged “Ukrainian refugees” over a plot to to sabotage the railway carrying military equipment from Europe into Ukraine.
Mutual railway sabotage between Ukraine and Russia has been frenetic. Russia unleashed heavy bombardments against Ukrainian railway facilities in the early days of the invasion and Ukraine has used teams of saboteurs and partisans deep behind enemy lines to blow up Russian rail lines supplying the front. As reported, given the state of Russian roads, Moscow’s invasion is heavily dependent on rail infrastructure to move up men and machines.
Russia responded by re-activating its fleet of armoured trains to protect its routes, although so far with only mixed results.
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