Donations
Veridica.md
As a new Cold War gathers steam, Poland finds itself on the frontline. Russian intelligence is recruiting agents in the country and it’s even using some for attacks against Kremlin opponents.
Poland, on the frontline of a new Cold War
It seems that the hot days of the Cold War are back. And Poland is one of the key areas of this conflict.
Here are just a few stories from recent days that show the scale of espionage that Poland is dealing with. These are not unique events - this has been the everyday reality here for some time:
- Judge Tomasz Szmydt went to Belarus and asked for political asylum from Alexander Lukashenko. During a press conference in Minsk, he said that he had escaped from “pressure from the Polish authorities” because of his sympathy for the East. Szmydt is a judge of the 2nd department of the Administrative Court in Warsaw, which, among others, deals with matters related to uniformed and secret services officers. As a judge, he had access to secret information. Prime Minister Donald Tusk suggests that Szmydt has been „cooperating with the East for a long time”. General Piotr Pytel - a former head of the Military Counterintelligence Service - suggests that Szmydt was recruited around 2016. At that time, he had over EUR 150,000 in debt and was most likely offered financial assistance. At the beginning, he may not have even known who he was really dealing with, but accepting the money was probably a turning point: if you took the money from us, you won't be able to get out of this cooperation - that's how all intelligence services in the world work. It is likely that Szmydt was evacuated from Poland because the Belarusian and Russian secret services realized that the judge was being investigated by Polish counterintelligence.
- The Polish border guards detained a 41-year-old Russian soldier who crossed the Belarusian-Polish border. He was wearing civilian clothes and did not have a weapon, but the documents he had with him prove that he reached Poland straight from the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
- An indictment in the case of Janusz N., an agent of the Russian intelligence, was submitted to the Court in Warsaw. According to the prosecutor's office, he operated in Poland for at least five years - since 2016. Janusz N. "participated in the activities of the Russian civilian intelligence [FSB] to achieve the political goals of the Russian Federation against the Republic of Poland”. During the search of his apartment, the Internal Security Agency (ABW) found cash worth EUR 80,000 (in various currencies). Some of them were euro banknotes with the band of the Russian Alfa Bank. The indictment shows that Janusz N. tried to establish contacts with politicians of all major parties. He offered them trips abroad and support in the campaigns.
Russians are not picky - they employ bankrupts and hooligans
On August 31, 2023, the intercom rang in Russian economist and blogger Maxim Mironov’s home in Buenos Aires. As he answered, a man on the other end said: “Professor Mironov? I have news for you - stay away from Russia and Russian politics!”. Mironov, who was working with the University of Madrid, was investigating how Russia was circumventing the economic sanctions imposed on it after the invasion of Ukraine. The next day, an unknown man approached his wife in the street, punched her in the face and shouted: "Stay away from Russia! Understood?!”
Argentine police looked over footage recorded by street surveillance cameras, but failed to identify the man. This was done by investigative journalists from the Russian website The Insider. Christo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov wrote in the article: “Through an image search, The Insider identified the man as 38-year-old Grzegorz Daszkowski from Bydgoszcz, Poland. Flight records confirm that he arrived in Argentina on August 30 and departed on September 5, 2023”. Daszkowski owned a construction company, which had gone bankrupt a year earlier.
Investigative journalists provided information to the Polish security services, which confirmed their findings. Grzegorz Daszkowski was recently detained by the police, who managed to establish that he was „handled” by a Belarusian citizen who was also linked to two Poles who, on March 12, 2024, attacked Leonid Volkov, an associate of Alexei Navalny, on the outskirts of Vilnius. The Russian activist was attacked when he was about to exit a car in front of his house. The attackers broke the windshield, used tear gas and hit Volkov several times with a hammer.
There were no major problems with identifying the perpetuators, as they logged in to their phones near the victim’s house. The men were arrested on April 3rd. The one that had used the hammer was Maksymilian K., a football hooligan and an MMA fighter. He had charged... 450 euros for doing the "job".
Facts mixed with rumors - disinformation harms the security of Poland and the EU
Representatives of the Polish secret services shouldn’t have any illusions: after hundreds of Russian agents working undercover as diplomats were expelled by the West following the February 24 attack on Ukraine, the Russians had to build alternative networks and recruit foreigners, preferably with EU passports, as this allowed them to travel around Europe. The modus operandi usually follows the same pattern: attacks are planned and prepared by Russian intelligence and executed by foreigners.
The mysterious Belarusian who ordered the attacks on Volkov and Mironov has not been arrested to this day. This means that he left Poland or – more likely – directed the actions remotely, contacting Poles using online messengers.
Almost at the same time, Polish security services announced the arrest of a man who approached the Russians with an offer to help carry out an attack on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. As it turned out, he was a former soldier of the elite Podhale Brigade stationed in the southeastern region of Podkarpacie. He has pro-Russian views and even tried to obtain Russian citizenship. He was so attractive to Putin's intelligence that he managed to establish direct contact with an officer of the GRU unit responsible for attacks on the Kremlin’s opponents and sabotage in Europe.
In late March, the ABW conducted a raid on premises used by a security company managed by a former officer of the Government Protection Bureau, Jacek J. He was also the owner of the Voice of Europe website, established by the Russian secret services to spread disinformation and build a network of European politicians spreading narratives consistent with the Kremlin line.
In the meantime, General Jarosław Gromadziński was dismissed with immediate effect (without informing NATO allies) from the position of commander of Eurocorps (this is a multinational rapid reaction command with it’s HQ in Strasbourg). The Ministry of National Defense said in an official statement that the decision was related to the “new information about the officer”. The Military Counterintelligence Service started an investigation. To this day, it is unknown what caused such a sudden decision to dismiss the General. He is considered one of the most talented and experienced officers of the young generation: promoted by President Duda, he created a completely new formation on the eastern border (the so-called Iron Division) and after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, he cooperated closely with the American army, he was also deputy commander of the International Team for Assistance to Ukraine in Wiesbaden, Germany, which coordinates military aid for Ukraine. For his service he was awarded the high American military medal.
There is no official information about his dismissal from his position in Strasbourg, so there are countless speculations in the media. The Onet news portal, citing its informants in the army, points out that the general could be perceived by the new government as a man associated with PiS. Another publication suggests that it concerns irregularities related to the purchase of equipment for the unit that Gromadziński commanded a few years ago. Rumors about the possibility of spying for Russia seem unlikely, but the prolonged silence in the case of General Gromadziński does not allow us to rule out such an option. He himself wrote on X that he “has nothing to reproach himself with”.
Weaknesses of the Polish secret services
In a situation where we learn about new espionage scandals every now and then, the most important question is: how efficient are the Polish counterintelligence services, especially the Internal Security Agency (ABW)? The recent arrests of contractors commissioned by Russian secret services were carried out by the ABW thanks to information provided by allies – Lithuanian, Ukrainian, German, Czech security services or investigative journalists.
There are several reasons for the weakness of the Polish secret services. During the PiS government, the number of ABW officers decreased dramatically, from almost six thousand in 2015 to three and a half thousand now. Some local offices of the Agency were closed altogether; it started with the Warsaw office which was followed, within a year, by the closure of a further ten offices.
In an interview on May 13th in "Gazeta Wyborcza", a former head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, General Piotr Pytel, said: “I have this political hypothesis – I have always suspected PiS of contacts with the Belarusian regime. Belarus could have been a channel of communication between the [Polish conservative alliance] of United Right and Russia – of course, a selected group, perhaps even separated by the United Right, which included the leadership of the secret services."
Donald Tusk's government has decided that all local ABW branch units will be restored in two months, but they certainly will not be able to immediately rebuild their former operational capabilities.
President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk also agreed to resume the work of the parliamentary commission investigating Russian influence in Poland. They even announced that applications to the prosecutor's office are already being prepared.
It remains to be seen what would the new measures reveal – weather the cases uncovered during the past months are isolated or just the tip of the iceberg.
---copie-image.webp)