Two Ukrainians working for Russia behind rail sabotage, Polish PM says

Two Ukrainian citizens who have long worked for Russian intelligence have been identified as the suspects behind two acts of sabotage on Poland’s rail network, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said.

One of the two suspects had already been convicted in absentia of acts of sabotage in western Ukraine, Tusk told Poland’s parliament, the Sejm.

On Monday, Tusk visited the scene of an explosion near Mika, south-east of Warsaw, which damaged the railway line leading to the Ukrainian border, calling it “an unprecedented act of sabotage”.

Another incident further down the line near Pulawy forced a crowded train to stop suddenly and damage was found to overhead cables.

Polish authorities had initially said there was a very high chance that acts of sabotage had been ordered by a “foreign service”.

But a spokesman for Poland’s special services minister said on Tuesday that “everything points to them being Russian special services”.

“The goal was to cause a rail catastrophe,” Tusk told MPs.

The Polish prime minister said he would not disclose the names of the two suspects as this could complicate the operation, though he told parliament that one was living in Belarus and the other was a resident of eastern Ukraine.

Both suspects had crossed into Poland from Belarus during the autumn and had now returned there via the border crossing at Terespol in the far south-west of Belarus, close to the Ukrainian border, he added.

Poland is both a Nato and EU member state, and its railway network has become vital for moving for supplies of aid into Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.