2023-03-17 14:27 update: 2023-03-17, 20:01
Fot. PAP/Albert Zawada
Three more people have been arrested in an ongoing case concerning spying for Russia, PAP has learned from the National Prosecution Office.
"The court has fully shared the prosecutor's stance, approved the motions and issued a three-month arrest warrant with regard to three people," the National Prosecution Office confirmed to PAP on Friday. This brings the total number of people arrested in the case to nine.
On Thursday, the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, said that the Internal Security Agency (ABW) had arrested six people on suspicion of cooperating with the Russian security services.
"The suspects had been conducting intelligence operations against Poland and preparing acts of sabotage ordered by Russian intelligence," said Kaminski, who is also the coordinator of Poland's intelligence services, adding that the detained persons are "foreigners from behind Poland's eastern border."
The minister pointed out that "the suspects had been getting ready to carry out sabotage operations designed to paralyse deliveries of equipment and weapons, as well as humanitarian aid to Ukraine."
According to the minister, the collected evidence shows that the group had also been ordered to destabilise Polish-Ukrainian relations, to incite hostility towards Nato countries in Poland, and to attack the policies of the Polish government towards Ukraine.
"The ABW has at its disposal evidence confirming that the suspects had been receiving payments from the Russian secret services," Kaminski noted, adding that they had been paid on a regular basis.
The radio station RMF FM was the first to report on Wednesday that the security services had cracked a spy network working for Russia, which was preparing possible sabotage attacks on railway lines.
According to RMF FM, they had installed cameras along railway routes in the Podkarpackie province, south-eastern Poland, close to the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, which is the main logistics hub delivering military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. (PAP)
