A Polish national has been arrested on suspicion of passing sensitive information to Russia to facilitate a possible assassination plot against President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Suspect Paweł K faces a prison sentence of up to eight years after being detained in Poland and accused of ‘reporting his willingness to act for foreign intelligence services’.
The man was tasked with collecting “military intelligence… with information on the security of Rzeszów-Jasionka airport” to “help Russian special services plan a possible attack” on the Ukrainian leader, Polish prosecutors believe .
Polish authorities cooperated with their counterparts in Ukraine during the investigation, which led to the arrest of Paweł K on Wednesday. The investigation is still ongoing.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of attempts on President Zelensky’s life have been reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Three Seas Summit in Vilnius this month
File photo of Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. A man has been arrested in Poland on suspicion of passing intelligence to Russia to help facilitate a plot on the life of President Zelensky.
According to At the Public Prosecution Service, an investigation revealed how Paweł K had ‘declared his willingness to act for Russia’s military intelligence service’ and had established contacts with citizens ‘directly involved in the war in Ukraine’.
They alleged that he became involved in collecting and passing on military intelligence to Russia, including information about the security of Rzeszów-Jasionka airport in southeastern Poland.
This was intended ‘among other things’ to help special services plan an attack on Zelensky, prosecutors allege.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine raised suspicions about Paweł K to the Polish Prosecutor’s Office, which conducted an investigation into the suspect.
The ‘Polish side’ emphasized strong cooperation with Ukraine to foil the alleged plot, by sharing information and collecting evidence from inside and outside Poland.
The investigation is still being conducted by the Homeland Security Service, under the supervision of the Public Prosecution Service.
As early as March 2022, Pravda said reported that the Ukrainian army had ‘destroyed’ a Chechen unit tasked with ‘eliminating’ Zelensky.
Chechnya is a republic within Russia.
“Putin ordered the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov to do the dirtiest work and personally instructed him at a meeting on February 3, 2022,” the newspaper reported more than two weeks before the invasion.
The Chechen group was tasked with eliminating Ukrainian leaders before being repelled by Ukraine’s armed forces, Pravda claimed.
Mikhail Podolyak, Zelensky’s presidential adviser, previously claimed that the Ukrainian leader had survived more than a dozen attempts in the first two weeks of the war alone.
‘Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. “I believe there have been more than a dozen such attempts,” he said Ukrainian Pravda in March 2022.
“We have a very powerful intelligence and counterintelligence network; they keep an eye on everything and all these DRGs [Russian reconnaissance groups] are eliminated along the way.
“That is, we understand all the plans and our counterintelligence is working on them.”
In 2023, Polish intelligence services captured a pro-Russian spy network that was allegedly planning sabotage attacks on Poland’s railway lines. The agents were seized after intelligence officers from the Polish ABW (photo, file photo) found hidden cameras
File photo. Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting in Russia, April 17, 2024
In March 2023, a group of foreign citizens were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia, Polish government officials told the BBC.
Polish security services have reportedly broken up the spy network accused of installing secret cameras at Rzeszow-Jasionka airport to film the transport infrastructure used to deliver aid to Ukraine.
The group is said to have installed dozens of cameras near railway junctions and major transport routes in the border areas with Ukraine, local radio station RMF FM reported.
Military and cargo planes from the US and Europe regularly use the airport in Poland to deliver supplies bound for Ukraine.