Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk revealed Thursday that his country arrested a Russian man hired by Moscow to kill a Ukrainian-American citizen who was “inconvenient to the Putin regime.”
Tusk said the suspect was taken into custody Friday, with the alleged target being a man in Poland’s capital of Warsaw, according to a report from Reuters.
“Thanks to the truly brilliant action of our services … we detained a Russian citizen recruited by Russian intelligence services,” Tusk was quoted saying, adding that the target held both Ukrainian and U.S. passports. “At the last minute, thanks to the action of the Internal Security Agency and the police, we managed to prevent this execution, this attack.”
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Tusk also said Thursday that it was the first time that “someone on the order of Russia” sought to attack an American citizen on the territory of another NATO country, The Associated Press reported.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with U.S. services, Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister overseeing intelligence services, told the AP.
The news agency reported that it has mapped about 200 acts of sabotage, arson and other disruption across Europe since the start of the Ukraine war that officials have linked to Russia. President Vladimir Putin claimed to the AP in May that Russia is not waging a sabotage campaign against Europe.
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In June, a Russian artist who was critical of Putin was shot and killed at close range near his home in eastern Poland. Tusk said at the time that the killing had the hallmarks of a political assassination. He suggested it was possible Russia was behind it, but Polish officials have not yet attributed it to Moscow.
Last year, French officials disrupted a plot which they believe was aimed at killing Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian exile who lives under police protection and works to help military defectors flee Putin’s war.
Lithuanian officials also disrupted a plot last year to kill a Lithuanian supporter of Ukraine and another against a Russian activist.
Officials in Germany have similarly broken up two plots: one to target the head of a German weapons company supplying Ukraine, the other against a Ukrainian military official.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
