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Russia plans to sow chaos with attacks on air transport in Poland and elsewhere, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned.
His comments are the latest indication of what security experts charge is a campaign of sabotage and intimidation inspired by Moscow that began last year.
“The latest information can confirm the validity of fears that Russia was planning acts of terrorism in the air not only against Poland,” Tusk told a news conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw on Wednesday.
Moscow has denied involvement in a number of mysterious explosions and breakages that have bedevilled western leaders over the past year.
Experts say that evidence suggests Russia was behind explosions at logistics depots in Europe last summer, which may have been a dry run for terror attacks on cargo flights to the US.
The explosions occurred in depots in Britain, Germany and Poland in July. Tusk did not mention them specifically.
In April, two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Bavaria for allegedly plotting to attack military and logistics sites in Germany on behalf of Russia.
That same month, two men were charged with having started a fire at a warehouse in the UK containing aid shipments for Ukraine. English prosecutors accused them of working for the Russian government.
In October, Germany’s domestic spy chief said a plane narrowly avoided crashing after a parcel destined for its hold burst into flames before the flight in a suspected act of sabotage. Thomas Haldenwang warned of a dramatic increase in “aggressive behaviour” by Russian agents.
Ken McCallum, head of Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service, said that same month that the Russian military intelligence (GRU) “in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more.”
Security experts say that the clear aim of many attacks has been to probe western states’ security in such a way as to prepare for a major attack on a Nato country.
“If you strip out some of the Russian attacks that appear to be random attacks designed to sow fear, the remaining attempts follow a clear pattern,” said Keir Giles, senior fellow at Chatham House and author of the book Russia’s War on Everybody.
“Russia is probing defences and probing the capabilities of European states to respond,” Giles said. The airline plot “demonstrated a clear willingness by Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks that cause mass civilian casualties.” He said it was only through good luck that the devices did not go off while planes were airborne.
Nine people were arrested in Poland last year, suspected of plotting sabotage attacks in Europe in co-ordination with Russian intelligence. The Polish government has also increased its vigilance regarding Moscow-backed influence operations targeting its presidential election in May, following Romania’s unprecedented decision last month to cancel its vote due to Russian interference.
Poland, which took over the EU rotating presidency on January 1, will push “to accelerate the accession path” of Ukraine to the bloc, Tusk said.
Kyiv applied for EU membership soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and has started accession talks. Those negotiations are expected to last several years before the 27 member states will decide on the country joining the bloc.