Foreigner detained in Poland on suspicion of spying for Russia

A foreign citizen was detained in Poland, who is suspected of working for Russian intelligence, the press service of the Gdansk district prosecutor’s office said. transmits Polish Radio.

According to investigators, since at least January of this year, the detainee has been collecting information about critical infrastructure and the work of the departments responsible for security in the Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeships. Then he allegedly passed the received data to Russian intelligence.

During interrogation, the suspect (his nationality was not specified) confessed to espionage, and, according to the Polish prosecutor’s office, described the details of his recruitment by Russian intelligence. The man was arrested for three months, he faces up to ten years in prison.

In mid-March, the Polish Internal Security Agency arrested nine people suspected of working for Russian intelligence. The investigation believes that they organized monitoring of the movement of trains by rail, documenting the movement of vehicles with weapons for Ukraine.

Officially, Poland did not name the citizenship of the detainees, but, according to data local media, there are no Russians among them, the recruits were allegedly citizens of Ukraine and Belarus. At the same time, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko declaredthat Warsaw “enough” people, then to offer Moscow and Minsk “an exchange for someone.” According to him, such an exchange “has already been offered.”

At the end of December last year, the military department of the Prosecutor’s Office of Poland presented a Russian and a Belarusian were charged with espionage for the benefit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU). Those detained back in April 2022 are accused of conducting espionage activities in favor of Russian military intelligence from 2017 to April 2022. The investigation established that the detainees were collecting information about military installations “of decisive importance for the defense of the republic.”