Fourteen foreigners were convicted by the court in Lublin, eastern Poland, on Tuesday, December 19, for engaging in acts of sabotage and espionage on the territory of Poland. According to the prosecution, all acted, between January and July, as part of a network organized in the pay of Russia. Two other members of the same network, a Ukrainian and a Belarusian, ultimately decided not to plead guilty and will face a separate trial.
“There are thirteen Ukrainian nationals, two Belarusians and one Russian”, specifies Barbara Markowska, spokesperson for the Lublin District Court. Absent from the courtroom, the defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to thirteen months to six years in prison.
Three of them explicitly requested, through their lawyers, to serve their sentences in Poland. The investigation was carried out by the Internal Security Agency, a Polish intelligence service, under the supervision of the Organized Crime Department of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin.
Aged 17 to 39, practicing professions as diverse as mechanic, French teacher, computer engineer or even lawyer, the fourteen members of the network were responsible for various missions, linked to the observation of strategic infrastructures in Poland, become an essential logistics hub for deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine.
GPS transmitters on trains
The group was thus interested in the ports of Gdynia and Gdansk, on the Baltic; at the airports of Gdynia and that of Jasionka, near Rzeszow, or also at the railway terminal of Medyka, on the Ukrainian border. So many places through which a good part of the military and humanitarian aid destined for the neighboring country at war passes.
Some purchased spare parts for cameras, cameras, SIM cards, others monitored and filmed the strategic sites targeted, still others installed GPS transmitters on trains. The group also planned “propaganda activities involving the distribution of leaflets and graffiti, with the aim of arousing a hostile attitude among Polish citizens towards Ukrainians”it is specified in the indictment.
The head of the network, a man named Andreï – who is not one of the sixteen accused – “planned to derail a train carrying military equipment in Poland, as in Ukraine. He was looking for members inside and outside the group to do this task in exchange for $10,000. [9 000 euros] ».
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