Poland detains Russian national who planned to murder US-Ukrainian citizen in Warsaw – PM Tusk

Olha Kovalchuk, Iryna Balachuk - 13 August, 18:11

Donald Tusk. Stock photo: Donald Tusk on Facebook

Poland's Internal Security Agency, working with the police, has detained a Russian national who was preparing to murder a dual US-Ukrainian citizen on behalf of Russian intelligence services.

Source: Polsat News, citing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, as reported by European Pravda

Quote from Tusk: "This is the first case in which someone decided to carry out the assassination of a US citizen on Russia's orders on the territory of another NATO country, specifically on the territory of Poland, in Warsaw."

Details: Tusk said the Russian national was detained on 7 August.

He did not name the man the Russian national had been preparing to kill, but said he was "inconvenient from the point of view of Putin's regime".

Tusk noted that Russia is waging a hybrid war against Western European countries that support Ukraine and that incidents like this should be expected to happen again.

"Unfortunately, we must proceed from the assumption that Putin's regime will attempt to eliminate people who are inconvenient for various reasons, in various parts of the world," the prime minister said, adding that Poland's special services are prepared for similar scenarios in the future.

"Our actions in this area will be extremely intensive to prevent any further possible attempts targeting citizens of Poland or other states on the territory of our country. I have already discussed this in detail with the minister-coordinator for special services… In the future, we will probably also face such pressure, so very difficult work lies ahead to avoid the worst-case scenarios," he concluded.

Background:

On 15 June, Russian artist Semyon Skrepetsky, who was known for being critical of Vladimir Putin, was killed in the Polish city of Biała Podlaska in the Lublin Voivodeship. A gunman approached him and pulled the trigger twice. When Skrepetsky fell to the ground, the killer went over to him and fired three more shots at close range.
On 18 June, Tusk announced that a 36-year-old Georgian citizen had been detained on suspicion of murdering the artist.
In light of this case, European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius warned that Russia would continue to carry out provocations against Europe, including similar assassination attempts.

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