Poland to probe alleged ties between Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence

February 6, 2026 by 4 Comments

Donald Tusk

THE GOVERNMENT OF POLAND has announced plans to launch an investigation into the possibility that an international sex trafficking ring set up by the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a “honey trap” set up by Russian intelligence to entrap “the elites of the Western world,” according to Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Tusk announced the commencement of what he referred to as a “special investigation” at a press conference on Wednesday, following a senior-level government meeting. He told reporters that the investigation would be led by members of the Office of the Prime Minister in association with the Ministry of Justice and the Polish intelligence services.

In 2008 a Florida court convicted Epstein—a jet-setting financier with links to hundreds of prominent individuals in finance, politics, industry, and academia—for sex offences. The disgraced financier was found dead in his jail cell in 2019. Prosecutors in the United States say they have identified over 100 victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, but some estimates claim that as many as 1,000 other victims have yet to come forward.

At last week’s press conference, a stern-looking Tusk pointed to Epstein’s large fortune, describing it as “unexplained” and adding that it raised important questions about the late financier’s links with state actors. He reminded his audience that “a growing number of commentators and experts assume that it is highly probable that this pedophilia scandal was a premeditated operation by the Russian KGB”—a term still frequently used in Eastern European countries to refer to the post-Soviet intelligence community.

The operation may have been a “so-called ‘honey trap’, a sweet bait, a trap set for the elites of the Western world, primarily the United States,” Tusk said. The Polish prime minister then added: “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organized this operation is.” Among other things, it could “mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” He added that investigators would systematically review and assess “every document currently available in the public domain.”

In a social media post later that day, Russian businessman Kirill Dimitriev, who last year was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russia’s special presidential envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation, dismissed the Polish government’s move. According to Dimitriev, all allegations about connections between Epstein and Russian intelligence are “lies” spread by “leftist elites.”

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 06 February | Permalink

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Reuters publishes details about alleged Russian airline sabotage plot

April 7, 2025 by 4 Comments

DHL AviationTHE REUTERS NEWS AGENCY has disclosed more information about an alleged plot by Russian intelligence to detonate bombs on cargo flights from Europe to North America. Initial details of the plot emerged in October 2024, when it was reported that explosions had occurred earlier that year at shipping warehouses in England and Germany. It later emerged that a similar explosion had occurred at a third shipping warehouse, located in Poland.

It is now understood that the explosions occurred on July 19, 20 and 21, 2024, and that at least two of them took place in facilities belonging to DHL, a German logistics firm headquartered in Bonn. Affected facilities are reportedly located in Leipzig, Warsaw, and Birmingham. All three explosions were caused by rudimentary incendiary devices hidden inside commercial shipments. European officials said at the time that the explosions were part of a broader wider campaign by Russian intelligence to sabotage Western European transportation and shipping networks.

Now the Reuters news agency claims that the explosions were meant to test security systems in preparation for a major sabotage operation. The operation aimed to detonate explosive mechanisms in mid-air on cargo flights from Europe to the United States and Canada. Moreover, a fourth incendiary device, which was found at a Warsaw shipping facility, failed to explode and has been forensically examined by bomb experts, Reuters said. Citing “interviews with more than a dozen European security officials”, including a person familiar with the case in Poland, the news agency said it was able to provide “the most granular account yet of the alleged plot”.

The report claims the incendiary devices were concealed inside pillows, bottles of cosmetics, and sex toys. They were ignited with the use of remote timers taken from cheap Chinese electronic goods. Once detonated, the timers sparked explosions with the help of gelled flammable cocktails that included compounds such as nitromethane—a highly flammable liquid chemical used in industrial applications. All ingredients used in the incendiary devices, including nitromethane, are easily accessible to consumers at a relatively low cost.

According to Reuters, the procedures followed in the DHL attacks fit the profile of similar operations that have been carried out in recent years by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Forces’ General Staff, known as GRU. Such procedures include hiring disposable agents, most of which are not Russian citizens, for one-off operations. In the case of the DHL attacks, the agents were allegedly hired on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram and paid with the use of cryptocurrencies, or in cash.

Among the alleged suspects in the case is a Ukrainian man identified by Reuters as Vladyslav Dekravets, who was recruited in southern Poland and is now facing extradition to Poland from Bosnia. Another suspect, identified in the Reuters report as Alexander Bezrukavyi, allegedly packaged parcels containing sneaker shoes for shipment to the United States and Canada. The shipments were intended to help the GRU “gather information about parcel-processing methods and timing”. During the operation, the two men came in contact with individuals who appeared to be GRU officers, using the cryptonyms WARRIOR and MARY.

The DHL cases remain at a pre-trial stage in several European countries, Reuters said. They involve the pending extradition of suspects from elsewhere in Europe. The trials are going to feature evidence gathered from criminal investigators and intelligence agencies, according to the report.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 April 2025 | Permalink

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At least four Russians released in prisoner exchange with West are verified ‘illegals’

August 5, 2024 by 2 Comments

SVR hqAT LEAST FOUR OF the eight Russians released by the United States and its allies last week, in exchange for 16 people held in Russian prisons, are verified ‘illegals’ —the term used to describe Russian non-official-cover intelligence personnel. All four operated using third country identity documents, including passports. In every case but one, these identity documents had been illegally acquired.

In intelligence parlance, the term ‘illegals’ emerged during the Cold War to describe Russian intelligence personnel who operated without any formal association with Russian diplomatic facilities. In many cases, these operatives used third country passports. This enabled them to operate with an unusual degree of flexibility and evade the attention of rival intelligence services. At the same time, however, the absence of diplomatic credentials prevented these operatives from claiming diplomatic immunity if caught. It thus exposed them to the possibility of lengthy prison terms upon discovery.

THE TWO GRU ILLEGALS

Among the prisoners exchanged last week was Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov. Rubtsov was born in the Soviet Union as the grandson of a Spanish evacuee, who had been taken to Moscow as a child by the leftist Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 9, Rubtsov moved with his mother to Spain, where he had his name legally changed to Pablo González Yagüe and grew up in Catalonia and the Basque Country. He was arrested in Poland in 2022 and charged with participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland on behalf of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as GRU.

IntelNews has previously reported on the case of Mikhail Valeryevich Mikushin, who was also released and returned to Russia on Thursday. Mikushin lived for several years in Canada and Norway using a Brazilian passport under the name of José Assis Giammaria. When he was arrested by Norwegian authorities, Mikushin was working as a researcher on arctic security affairs for the Arctic University of Norway. Among other things, Mikushin was a volunteer researcher for a UiT GreyZone, a scholarly project that studies contemporary hybrid threats and grey zone warfare. Like Yagüe, Mikushin is also believed to have been employed by the GRU.

THE TWO SVR ILLEGALS

Arguably the most unusual case of illegals among those unveiled last week is that of Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva. The couple moved from Argentina to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, in 2017. They brought with them their two young children, a boy and a girl, both of whom appear to have been born in Argentina. Artem Dultsev’s Argentinian passport bore the name Ludvig Gisch, born in 1984 in the West African country of Namibia. Dultsev posed as an information technology executive. His wife, Anna Dultseva, who operated an art gallery, used the cover name Maria Rosa Mayer Munos and went by Mayer. Read more of this post

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Poland and Germany charge Russian operatives with assassination, sabotage plots

April 22, 2024 by 4 Comments

Rzeszów-Jasionka AirportAUTHORITIES IN GERMANY and Poland have charged three individuals with working on behalf of Russian military intelligence in planning acts of sabotage and assassination on European soil. One of the plots allegedly involved an effort to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Another aimed to sabotage commercial airport facilities that are being managed by the United States military.

Polish and Ukrainian authorities announced last week the arrest of Paweł K., a Polish citizen, who is believed to have been engaged in collecting information about the security of the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. Located in southeastern Poland, Rzeszów-Jasionka is a relatively small provincial airport. Its proximity to the Ukrainian border has made it central to efforts by Kyiv’s allies to supply it with war materiel following the expansion of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine in February 2022. Military supplies are transported to Rzeszów-Jasionka from across the world and then transferred across the Ukrainian border with trucks. Additionally, many high-level meetings between Ukrainian and Western officials take place at the airport. The United States military is currently providing security at the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport.

Polish authorities said last week that Paweł K. was part of a Russian intelligence collection operation that was “intended to assist in the planning of a potential assassination of a foreign state leader”, namely President Zelenskyy. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it informed its Polish counterpart agency about the assassination plot, which had been foiled “as a result of the close co-operation” between Ukrainian and Polish intelligence. Paweł K. is not a diplomat and thus has no immunity from prosecution in Poland. If convicted, therefore, he could face up to eight years in prison.

In a seemingly unconnected development, police in the southeastern German state of Bavaria arrested two dual German-Russian nationals, who have been charged with planning to sabotage military and industrial facilities on German soil. The plot appears to be part of broader Russian efforts to disrupt the production and delivery of military aid to Ukraine. At least one of the locations that the suspects are accused of targeting is a local military base under the command of the United States. The two suspects have been identified as Dieter S., 39, and Alexander J., 37. Both were arrested in the small city of Bayreuth.

Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, led by Minister Annalena Baerbock, summoned Sergei Nechayev, Russian Ambassador to Berlin, shortly after the arrest of Dieter S. and Alexander J. Some media reports noted the “unusually hasty” way Nechayev was summoned, which may indicate that German authorities have acquired “unequivocal proof of the link between the plot and the Kremlin”. An announcement made by the Russian embassy in Berlin confirmed that Nechayev had been summoned in connection to the arrests, but added that the ambassador had been presented with “no proof” that the two suspects were connected with Russian intelligence or that they had planned acts of sabotage.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 April 2024 | Permalink

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Poland’s super-secretive ‘school of spies’ marks 50 years of operation

August 2, 2023 by 1 Comment

ABW PolandDURING THE COLD WAR, Poland hosted the Eastern Bloc’s only known intelligence training facility for operations officers situated outside of the Soviet Union. The highly secretive training facility operated out of a heavily guarded compound located near the northern Polish village of Stare Kiejkuty in Gmina Szczytno county, approximately 65 miles from the Polish-Soviet border. Today, 50 years after its establishment, the facility continues to train the operations officers of post-communist Poland’s intelligence services.

During World War II, and in the immediate post-war period, Soviet authorities trained Polish intelligence personnel in Kuybyshev (in 1991 renamed to Samara) in southwestern Russia. This setup continued following the establishment of the Soviet-controlled Polish intelligence community. By the 1960s, the Polish intelligence community was being led by the Ministry of Public Security, referred to by its Polish initials, SB. The SB’s elite operations officers, which staffed its First Department, were all trained in the Soviet Union and in a Soviet-controlled facility in Warsaw.

But in 1970, Poland’s reformist President, Edward Gierek, put in motion a plan to modernize the Polish intelligence services. Gierek’s goal was for Polish intelligence to catch up with the pace of technological development, especially in the emerging digital realm. He also wanted Polish spy organizations to be able to compete directly against rival agencies in Western Europe. The rapid establishment of the Intelligence Personnel Training Centre near Stare Kiejkuty was the centerpiece of Gierek’s intelligence reforms.

Construction began in 1971 and was mostly completed within two years. In 1973, the heavily guarded training facility, which had been disguised as a “holiday resort” in official government maps, welcomed its first students. Students were taught how to operate undercover in the West and how to recruit sources in countries like West Germany, France and the United Kingdom. They were taught about Western European lifestyles and had access to Western products, including soft drinks and vending machines, which were absent from Polish life. Read more of this post

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Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting in response to Polish espionage claims

May 1, 2023 by 1 Comment

Warsaw PolandAUTHORITIES IN POLAND HAVE seized an abandoned school building in the Polish capital Warsaw, allegedly because it was being used as a base for espionage activities by the Russian government. Following the seizure  of the building complex, Russian officials issued stern but vague warnings, saying that action will be taken in response to what they termed as an “act of provocation” by the Polish government.

The controversial seizure was revealed on Saturday afternoon by Warsaw’s Deputy Mayor Tomasz Bratek, who announced that Warsaw city authorities had “taken possession” of the building. He was referring to a communist-era building complex in central Warsaw’s Ochota district, which, according to Moscow, belongs to the Russian government. The property was originally part of the Soviet embassy complex, but was later transformed into a high school and community center specializing in Russian language and culture. Many of its students were children of Russian diplomats who are stationed at the nearby Russian embassy. It has fallen into disuse in recent years.

Poland claims that the Russian government never officially bought or leased the property, and that it had been using it without permission for over three decades. Warsaw city officials maintain that the building belongs to the Warsaw city council and that they have repeatedly asked Russia to vacate the building, but to no avail. In recent years, the Polish government has been accusing Russia of using the high school as a cover for espionage activities, and claims that the use of the building by Moscow violates Polish sovereignty while also constituting a security threat.

Late on Saturday, the Russian government strongly denied the allegations and accused the Polish government of engaging in anti-Russian propaganda. It was later reported that Russia had called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (which it currently chairs) to discuss the matter. The United States and other Western countries have not yet commented on the incident, but are likely to express support for Poland’s actions, given their own concerns about Russian intelligence activities in the region.

The seizure of the high school building is just the latest incident in a long list of espionage and counter-espionage incidents involving Russia and its neighbors in Europe. Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, such incidents have increased considerably. The seizure of the high school building in Warsaw highlights the continuing tensions between Russia and its neighbors in Europe, as well as the centrality of intelligence-gathering and counter-intelligence efforts in the region.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 May 2023 | Permalink

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Alleged Russian spy and sabotage cell busted in Poland [updated]

March 16, 2023 by 1 Comment

Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport PolandSIX NINE MEMBERS OF AN alleged Russian saboteur cell have been arrested in Poland, according to media reports and official acknowledgements by Polish authorities. Early reports on Wednesday afternoon local time centered on the arrests of six nine individuals, who were detained on suspicion of conducting espionage and planning sabotage attacks against various elements of transportation infrastructure.

Radio station RMF24 FM reported that the six nine individuals were detained following a number of early-morning raids conducted by the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW), which is the country’s primary counterintelligence and counterterrorism organization. At least some of the six nine individuals are reportedly Belarusian nationals who were active in Poland’s southeastern Podkarpackie Voivodeship, a largely rural province that borders Ukraine’s Lviv Oblast. Later on Wednesday, the RMF24 FM report was confirmed by Polish government officials, who spoke to the BBC.

Notably, the Podkarpackie Voivodeship is home to the Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport, located near the village of Jasionka, which is approximately 60 miles, or 100 kilometers, from the Ukrainian border. Since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, this provincial airport has been transformed into a major logistical gateway for the transportation of Western military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Dozens of Western aircraft land there every day, carrying supplies that are then loaded onto trucks or trains en route to Ukraine.

According to RMF24 FM, the six nine foreign nationals installed hidden miniature cameras at railway junctions and other strategic transportation hubs throughout the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. The cameras were allegedly used to collect information on the movement of trains and trucks that were being used to transport supplies from the Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport to Ukraine. The radio station said that Polish authorities were scheduled to provide further information about the alleged spy cell at a press conference on Thursday.

[Updated to reflect arrest of nine individuals, as opposed to six, as initially reported]

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 March 2023 | Permalink

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Cell phones of leading Polish opposition figures hacked by government, group claims

December 27, 2021 by 3 Comments

Civic Coalition PolandCENTRAL FIGURES OF POLAND’S opposition coalition, which narrowly lost the 2019 parliamentary election, had their cell phones hacked with a surveillance software used by the country’s spy services, according to a new report. A major target of the hacks was Krzysztof Brejza, a member of the lower chamber of the Polish parliament and campaign director of the Civic Coalition, a centrist-liberal alliance. In the parliamentary election of 2019, the Civic Coalition challenged the all-powerful Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has ruled Poland for much of the past decade.

The PiS is a populist pro-Russian party that opposes many of the core policies of the European Union, of which Poland is a member. In contrast, the Civil Coalition is pro-Western and supports Poland’s integration into the European Union. In 2019, while the two parties were competing in a feverish electoral campaign, Poland’s state-owned television aired a number of texts acquired from Brejza’s phone, in what the opposition decried as a “smear campaign”. Eventually, the PiS won the election with a narrow majority.

The information about Brejza’s cell phone hack was revealed last week by Citizen Lab, a research unit of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, which focuses on information technology, international security and human rights. According to the report, at least three senior figures in the Civil Coalition were under telephonic surveillance throughout the election campaign. Brejza’s cell phone was breached over 30 times between April and October of 2019, according to Citizen Lab. The other two victims of the surveillance operation were Ewa Wrzosek, a public prosecutor and leading critic of the PiS, as well as Roman Giertych, an attorney who represents leading members of the Civic Coalition.

The report claims that the surveillance against the Civil Coalition members was facilitated by Pegasus, a controversial spyware that is sold to governments around the world by NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli digital surveillance company based near Tel Aviv. Earlier this year, the United States government blacklisted NSO Group Technologies, in a move that surprised many in Israel and beyond. Meanwhile, on December 24, the Polish government denied it had any role in the phone hacking affair. Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, dismissed the Citizen Lab revelations as “fake news”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 27 December 2021 | Permalink

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New book details ‘special relationship’ between CIA and Polish intelligence

October 26, 2021 by 2 Comments

CIA

A NEW BOOK BY longtime Washington Post foreign correspondent John Pomfret details what the author describes as “a hugely important intelligence relationship” between the United States Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence community of Poland. In From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance (Henry Holt and Co., October 2021), Pomfret claims that Polish intelligence has “functioned for decades almost as an adjunct to the [CIA]”.

According to Pomfret, the “special relationship” between the CIA and Polish intelligence began in the spring of 1990, when the first meeting between the two sides was arranged following a CIA official’s impromptu visit to Poland’s embassy in Portugal. Later that year, a team of Polish intelligence officers managed to exfiltrate half a dozen American government workers who had been left behind in Baghdad, as the US was preparing to launch a military operation in Kuwait, aimed at ejecting thousands of Iraqi troops from the tiny oil kingdom.

By the mid-1990s, the relationship between the CIA and Polish intelligence could be described as “special”, says Pomfret. Accordingly, the CIA station in Warsaw hosted “a flood of new joint operations” as its case officers were “working with Polish spies across the globe”. This formed a “blood bond” between the two services, claims Pomfret, with the Poles even allowing American intelligence officers to “roam through the headquarters of the Polish spy agency unescorted”.

Additionally, Polish intelligence handled assets in “some of the world’s most dangerous places”, as well as access to countries where the United States had no intelligence presence —for instance North Korea and Cuba. In the 2000s, CIA commended several Polish intelligence officers for the Legion of Merit, which is the US military’s highest award offered to citizens of foreign countries. Among the Legion of Merit recipients was a team of Polish intelligence officers who successfully collected air samples near nuclear facilities in Iran, according to Pomfret.

The relationship between American and Polish spies was not always smooth. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Poland hosted what was arguably the most important of the CIA’s global network of “black sites”, where terrorism detainees were interrogated, often violently. The CIA kept Polish officials away from the black site, while at the same time promising to keep under wraps the former communist country’s role in the controversial scheme. That promise was not kept, however, as Poland was eventually outed as being among a long list of hosts of CIA black sites, says Pomfret.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 October 2021 | Permalink

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Polish counterintelligence arrest man for giving military secrets to Russia

May 18, 2021 by 3 Comments

Poland ABW

POLAND’S COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENCY HAS announced the arrest of a Polish citizen, who reportedly admitted spying for Russian military intelligence. The 43-year-old man has been named only as “Marcin K.”, in compliance with Polish law. He was reportedly arrested on May 5 by officers of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), Poland’s domestic counter-intelligence agency.

According to ABW spokesman Stanisław Żaryn, the accused spy had been handing over classified “information and materials” to the Russian secret services. Much of the classified information reportedly related to the “military field”. The Russians also received sensitive information relating to “Polish entities and citizens”, according to government prosecutors. The Polish government described the information as “extremely important for Russian operations […] and to the detriment of the Republic of Poland”. No further information has been provided about the case.

Importantly, Polish authorities have not shared information about Marcin K.’s possible Russian handlers, who are likely to be employees of the Russian embassy in Warsaw. Regular intelNews readers will recall that Poland was among several European countries that expelled Russian diplomats last month, following a call for solidarity by the Czech Republic. Prague issued the call after it expelled 18 Russian diplomats in protest against an explosion that totaled a remote munition depot in the east of the country, which the Czechs claim was part of a Russian intelligence operation. In addition to expelling a number of Russian diplomats, Poland joined Hungary and Slovakia in issuing a joint statement decrying what it described as “deplorable act[s] of aggression and breach of international law committed by Russia on European soil”.

According to news reports, Marcin K. has been placed in pre-trial detention for three months, as investigators are interviewing witnesses and gathering material evidence for a pending trial.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 May 2021 | Permalink

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Flurry of diplomatic expulsions as European states respond to Russia spy allegations

April 27, 2021 by Leave a comment

Russian embassy RomaniaSEVERAL EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES announced plans to expel Russian diplomats this week, as Moscow declared an Italian diplomat persona non grata in a tit-for-tat dispute with Rome over espionage allegations. Earlier this month, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats in protest against an explosion that totaled a remote munition depot in the east of the country, which Prague claims was part of a Russian intelligence operation.

The explosion, which occurred in October of 2014, killed two people and destroyed a munitions storage facility belonging to the Military Technical Institute of the Czech Ministry of Defense. Czech investigators recently concluded it was perpetrated by Unit 29155, a Russian elite spy outfit that operates under the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, commonly known as GRU. The Kremlin responded to the expulsions of its diplomats by ordering 20 Czech diplomats to leave Russia, and condemning Prague’s move as an “unprecedented” and “a hostile act” that was designed “to please the United States”.

The Czechs retorted by calling their allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union to “expelled officers of Russian special services” in solidarity. In recent days, five countries have answered Prague’s call. Seven Russian diplomats have been given just days to leave Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Meanwhile, Romania announced on Monday that it would expel Alexei Grichayev, who serves as a deputy military attaché at the Russian embassy in Bucharest. The Romanian government said Grichayev’s “activities and actions [were] contrary to the Convention of Vienna on diplomatic relations” —a phrase used to denote espionage in diplomatic parlance.

Also on Monday, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Russian ambassador in order to file an official complaint, while Hungary, Poland and Slovakia issued a joint statement decrying what they described as “deplorable act[s] of aggression and breach of international law committed by Russia on European soil”. In a separate development, Moscow said on Monday it would expel an Italian diplomat in response to the expulsions of two Russian diplomats from its embassy in Rome last month. The two Russians were accused of recruiting an Italian Navy captain, who has been charged with spying for the Kremlin.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 27 April 2021 | Permalink

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Militaries around the world scramble to contain impact of COVID-19

March 11, 2020 by 1 Comment

COVID-19 ChinaMilitary forces around the world are scrambling to contain the impact of COVID-19 on military readiness, as the virus continues to infect troops and commanders at an alarming rate. On Tuesday, the Polish government announced that General Jaroslaw Mika, who serves as general commander of Branches of the Armed Forces, had tested positive for the coronavirus. General Mika is believed to have contracted the virus during a military conference that took place in the German city of Wiesbaden, where North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders gathered to plan an American-led military exercise.

Also on Tuesday, the United States Department of Defense said that the commander of the US Army in Europe, Lieutenant General Christopher Cavoli, participated at the Wiesbaden conference, along with several other US Army staff members. They are currently being tested for exposure to COVID-19. Meanwhile the Reuters news agency reported that the US Pentagon acknowledged that “the US military’s official tally of servicemembers and related personnel who have been infected by the coronavirus likely undercounts the actual total”. Sources told the news agency that the low age and good health of American troops was “a mixed blessing of sorts”, since it allows US servicemembers to survive the virus but at the same time reduces their symptoms that would normally trigger testing for COVID-19.

The government of Taiwan said on Tuesday that over 400 members of its armed forces had entered self-imposed quarantine in order to prevent a possible COVID-19 outbreak among military personnel. This brings the total number of Taiwanese servicemembers who are currently in quarantine to over 2,000, which includes two generals. The country’s Minister of Defense, Yen De-fa, insisted on Tuesday that the virus had not impacted Taiwan’s military readiness.

Chinese officials have not provided information about the effect of the coronavirus on the country’s military. The Chinese-language website of The Epoch Times said last week that, according to unnamed insiders, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had “forcibly isolated” tens of thousands of servicemembers this month. There are no reports of specific numbers in the Chinese media or non-Chinese news outlets.

Finally, according to Daily NK, a South Korean website that specializes on news from North Korea, approximately 180 North Korean soldiers have died as a result of contracting COVID-19 in the past month. The website cited “a source inside the North Korean military”, who said that Pyongyang had forcibly quarantined at around 3,700 soldiers of all ranks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country’s military.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 10 March 2020 | Permalink

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Poland frees on bail former intelligence officer arrested for spying for China

July 10, 2019 by 2 Comments

Orange PolskaThe Polish government has authorized the release on bail of a former counterintelligence officer who was charged in January of this year with spying for China. The man has been identified in media reports as Piotr Durbajlo and is believed to have served as deputy director of the Internal Security Agency, Poland’s domestic counterintelligence service. A cyber security expert, Durbajlo also served in Poland’s Office of Electronic Communications with a top security clearance and unrestricted access to classified systems of Poland and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Poland is a member.

However, at the time of his arrest on January 10, Durbajlo had left government service and was a mid-level executive at Orange Polska. The company operates as the Polish branch of a French multinational telecommunications carrier with sister companies in several European Union countries. Along with Durbajlo, Polish authorities arrested Wang Weijing, a Chinese national who worked for the Chinese telecommunications manufacturer Huawei. Orange Polska is Huawei’s main domestic partner in Poland. Wang reportedly learned Polish at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. In 2006 he was posted by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Chinese consulate in Gdansk, Poland’s largest Baltic Sea port. In 2011 he left the Foreign Service and joined the Polish office of Huawei. Following his arrest on January 10, he was charged with espionage. Huawei denied it had any role in espionage against the Polish state, but fired Wang nonetheless. Both Wang and Durbajlo have been in pretrial detention since their arrest in January.

On Friday, July 5, Durbajlo’s legal team announced that he would be set free on July 7, on a $31,500 bail that must be paid within 30 days to secure his release. His lawyers explained that the charges against him had not been dropped, but did not explain why he was being released. It is worth noting that Durbajlo’s release on bail was announced during a visit to Poland by a high-level Chinese delegation, aimed at discussing economic and political ties between Warsaw and Beijing. Late on Tuesday it was announced that Wang would remain in pretrial detention for at least three more months.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 10 July 2019 | Permalink

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Huawei fires Chinese employee arrested in Poland for spying

January 14, 2019 by 2 Comments

Huawei PolandThe Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has fired one of its employees who was arrested last week in Poland on charges of spying for China, saying that his actions had “no relation to the company”. The man, identified in media reports as Wang Weijing, was arrested last Tuesday by Polish counterintelligence officers who conducted searches of Huawei’s offices in Warsaw and seized electronic hardware and documents. Wang reportedly learned Polish at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. In 2006, he was posted by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Chinese consulate in Gdansk, Poland’s largest Baltic Sea port city. In 2011, he left the Foreign Service and joined Huawei, which employed him at its offices in Poland.

Reports from Poland said that Wang was arrested alongside a Polish national, who was identified in media reports only as Piotr D. He is believed to be a mid-level executive of Orange, a French multinational telecommunications carrier who is Huawei’s main domestic partner in Poland. Polish media also reported that, prior to joining Orange, Piotr D. was an upper-level manager in an unnamed Polish intelligence agency. Piotr D.’s house was searched by security officers on Tuesday, along with Wang’s house. The two arrests came six weeks after Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada. Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was reportedly detained on December 1 in Vancouver at the request of the United States. Washington says it has evidence that Meng “tried to evade the American embargo against Iran”.

Over the weekend, Poland’s Internal Affairs Minister, Joachim Brudzinski, said that the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization —of which Poland is a member— should develop a joint position on whether to continue to allow Huawei to operate in Europe. But his call was reportedly met with a lukewarm response from government and private-sector leaders. Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it was concerned about Wang’s arrest and urged Warsaw to treat him “with fairness”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 14 January 2019 | Permalink

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Poland arrests military intelligence chiefs for ties to Russian spies

December 18, 2017 by 3 Comments

PytelAuthorities in Poland have charged three high-level military intelligence officials with acting in the interests of Russia. The three include two former directors of Polish military intelligence and are facing sentences of up to 10 years in prison. The news broke on December 6, when Polish authorities announced the arrest of Piotr Pytel, who was director of Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) from 2014 to 2015. It soon emerged that two more arrests had taken place, that of Pytel’s predecessor, Janusz Nosek, and Krzysztof Dusza, Pytel’s chief of staff during his tenure as SKW director.

According to the newsmagazine Gazeta Polska, which provides extensive coverage of the arrests in its latest issue, the SKW officials are accused of having had unauthorized contacts with Russian intelligence personnel and of “operating on behalf of a foreign intelligence service”. The court indictment reportedly states that the Polish officials “cooperated, without seeking the necessary authorization, with members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)”. The indictment also notes that “the mission of the FSB conflicts with that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, of which Poland is a full member.

According to reports in the Polish media, the three men are accused of having held several undisclosed meetings with FSB officers in Poland. One such meeting allegedly took place in the village of Ułowo, in north-central Poland. The village is located just a few miles from Poland’s border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. During the meeting, which included dinner and “heavy consumption of alcohol”, the SKW officials allegedly met with the FSB’s senior representative in Poland, identified in court documents only as “W.J.”, as well as with several other Russian intelligence officers. Following that meeting, Pytel and Dusza allegedly helped falsify the application data of an unnamed representative of the FSB in Poland, who was stationed at Russia’s embassy in Warsaw. This allegedly allowed the Russian intelligence officer to evade diplomatic restrictions on travel and to gain access to information about Poland’s military that he otherwise would not have.

Speaking on Polish state-owned television, Poland’s Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said last week that he was aware of the seriousness of the accusation against the three SKW officials. He told the Telewizja Polska station that the three officials face “very serious allegations” that point to “fully conscious and illegal cooperation with Russian spies”. That, said Macierewicz, was the “worst kind of betrayal that can be committed by a Pole”. The three defendants claim that they were not working in the interests of the FSB and that it was their job to meet regularly with Russian intelligence representatives in Poland.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 December 2017 | Permalink

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