Polish prosecutors charge two Ukrainian citizens with railway sabotage

This was announced at a briefing by Piotr Nowak, a representative of the National Prosecutor’s Office of Poland, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Direct perpetrators of the terrorist-type sabotage are two Ukrainian citizens – Oleksandr K. and Yevhenii I.,” Nowak said, specifying that the men were born in 1986 and 1984.

He stated that there is a wide body of evidence, including traces collected at the scene and video surveillance data.

“The charges relate to acts of terrorist-type sabotage carried out on November 15–16 this year in the interests of Russian Federation intelligence against Poland. These charges concern both incidents we have reported, including damage to railway tracks in the area of the village of Mika using an explosive device,” the prosecutor said.

According to him, the explosive device was triggered on November 15 at 20:58 local time as a freight train passed.

The second act of sabotage, Nowak said, occurred near the village of Gołomb on the Warsaw–Dorohusk railway line (near the border with Ukraine). The saboteurs damaged the electrical supply on this section of the track and installed metal objects intended to cause a train derailment.

The prosecutor emphasized that, in addition to potential railway casualties, these actions aimed to “intimidate the public, weaken and destabilize public order, and increase the sense of threat in society.”

The representative of the National Prosecutor’s Office added that Polish security services have detained several other individuals potentially involved in the sabotage, but no charges have been filed against them yet. He did not disclose their nationalities for investigative reasons.

Nowak also noted that the Polish prosecutor’s office is actively cooperating with Ukrainian authorities in this case.

As reported, the Onet publication stated on November 19 that Polish security services had identified four more accomplices of the two Ukrainian citizens acting on behalf of Russian intelligence. According to the report, they also hold Ukrainian citizenship and are currently in Poland. Police have their personal data and residential addresses.

During a speech in the Sejm, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said that Polish politicians accusing Ukraine of involvement in Russian railway sabotage are in fact “political saboteurs.”

Sikorski also announced a decision to close the Russian consulate in Gdańsk in connection with the railway sabotage incidents.

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