Poland Arrests Eight Over Alleged Russian Sabotage Plot Targeting the EU

Polish authorities this week arrested eight individuals, including a Ukrainian citizen, suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence to conduct a sabotage campaign aimed at destabilizing the European Union, the Associated Press reported.

On Tuesday, prosecutors said the suspects were allegedly sending shipments containing explosives and incendiary materials to Ukraine that would randomly detonate during transport.

Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister for coordinating special services, noted that the alleged saboteurs had been “conducting reconnaissance of military facilities and critical infrastructure, preparing resources for sabotage, and directly carrying out attacks.”

Authorities added that two more Ukrainian citizens were detained in Romania in the same sabotage plot. Romanian officials said the pair were operating on behalf of Russian intelligence and had planned to deposit parcels containing improvised explosive devices at an international courier company in Bucharest.

The arrests are the latest in a growing series of detentions linked to Russian-led sabotage operations across the EU and Western nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Western officials have accused Moscow and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other operations across Europe. Last month, Lithuanian officials detained individuals involved in an alleged Kremlin-linked ring that was planning a series of arson attacks in various European countries.

While Poland has arrested dozens of people suspected of sabotage and espionage, it came under fire recently for releasing a Ukrainian man wanted by Germany for involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion, the Wall Street Journal noted.

On Friday, a Polish court ordered the release of Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a deep-sea diver accused of helping plant explosives on the German-Russian pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

German prosecutors labeled the incident a criminal act and sought his extradition, but the court ruled the evidence insufficient and said the attack was a legitimate wartime operation.

While German officials called the release “shameful,” observers said the verdict highlighted the tensions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between allies.

Once the world’s largest offshore gas conduit, Nord Stream 2 was long criticized by Poland and other Eastern European nations for enriching Moscow and bypassing Ukraine, a traditional transit hub for Russian energy exports.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said before the ruling that the problem with Nord Stream 2 was “not that it was blown up. The problem is that it was built.”