WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that sabotage acts inspired and organised by Russia are aimed at destabilising and weakening Poland and bear the hallmarks of “state terrorism”.
Over the weekend, an explosion damaged railway tracks on the Warsaw-Lublin route, which connects the Polish capital with the Ukrainian border, something Tusk described as an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.
Poland has identified two people responsible for the explosion, Tusk said on Tuesday, adding that they were Ukrainians who collaborated with Russian intelligence and that they had fled to Belarus.
Poland has asked Belarus to extradite the wanted Ukrainians and closed the Russian consulate in Gdansk – the last one still operating in the country – as well as deploying thousands of soldiers to protect infrastructure.
Moscow has denied involvement, accusing the Polish government of “Russophobia” and said it would likewise limit Poland’s diplomatic and consular presence in Russia.
“Recent events leave no room for any illusions: Russia is implementing another phase of hybrid warfare aimed at destabilising our country,” Tusk told parliament.
“The sabotage operations, inspired and directly organised by the Kremlin’s services for many months, have recently crossed a critical line, and one can now speak of state terrorism.”
There has been a wave of arson, sabotage and cyberattacks in Poland and other European nations since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
