Two Ukrainian citizens working for Russia’s FSB intelligence service are suspected of sabotaging a railway line in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on November 18. Speaking to the lower house of parliament, Tusk confirmed two acts of sabotage against the Warsaw–Lublin railway line, which links the Polish capital to the border with Ukraine.
In the first incident near the village of Mika, an explosive device was detonated on a railway track as a freight train was passing through. Additional explosives that failed to detonate were also found at the scene. In a separate incident near Puławy, a city to the south, a steel clamp was installed on the track in what appeared to be an attempt to derail a train. A mobile phone had also been set up nearby to record the scene. No one was injured in either incident.
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Tusk said the attempts were deliberate: “In both cases, we’re certain that the efforts to blow up the tracks and damage the railway infrastructure were intentional, and that the goal was to cause a major rail disaster.”
The two suspects crossed into Poland from Belarus and then fled back across the border before they could be apprehended, Tusk told the Sejm. Though he did not give their names, Tusk said the two Ukrainian nationals had collaborated with Russian intelligence for “a long time.” He also said that one suspect was from Donbas, while the other had been found guilty of sabotage by a Lviv court in May.
In response to the incidents, Tusk raised the threat alert for certain Polish rail lines to the second-highest level. He also asked the Foreign Ministry to take “immediate diplomatic measures” to extradite the suspects from Belarus. Earlier, Tusk wrote on X that the explosion near Mika was “an unprecedented act of sabotage” targeting Poland’s security. “This route is also crucially important for delivering aid to Ukraine. We will catch the perpetrators, whoever they are,” he added.
The Kremlin has denied Russian involvement in the incidents. “It would be completely strange if Russia wasn’t blamed first. Russia is blamed for all manifestations of hybrid and direct warfare,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on November 18. Claiming that “Russophobia is flourishing” in Poland, Peskov described Polish authorities as “confused” and warned that “if they continue playing with fire, then of course, they will face very severe consequences.”
Peskov also deemed it “remarkable” that the acts of sabotage were linked to Ukrainian citizens, and recalled the alleged involvement of Ukrainians in the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the acts of sabotage in Poland, saying in a statement that Russia deliberately recruits Ukrainian passport holders to carry out “hybrid attacks, sabotage, and other crimes.” “Russia is trying to shift the blame for its crimes onto Ukrainians. But we are confident that Ukraine’s partners understand perfectly that the source of such sabotage is Russia itself,” the ministry said.
The targeting of Poland’s rail network is the latest in a string of incidents in Europe since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including arson, sabotage, cyberattacks, and airspace incursions. On September 10, around 20 Russian drones breached Polish airspace, prompting Warsaw to scramble fighter jets to shoot them down. In the weeks that followed, European leaders began discussing plans to create a “drone wall” to protect NATO’s eastern flank.
