WARSAW: Polish authorities accused Russian intelligence services on Sunday of orchestrating a fire that destroyed a large shopping center last year in the capital of Warsaw.
\nSince Russia\u2019s February 2022 offensive against Ukraine, Poland \u2014 a loyal ally of Kyiv \u2014 claims to be the target of sabotage attempts which they blame on Russia.
\nIn May 2024, a fire completely destroyed a large shopping center in Warsaw and the 1,400 small businesses it housed, most of them owned by members of the Vietnamese community.
\nAuthorities immediately launched an investigation but had until now refrained from blaming Moscow.
\n\u201cWe now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping center in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services,\u201d said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on X.
\nThe justice and interior ministries said in a separate, joint statement Sunday that some of the alleged perpetrators were already in custody, while others had been identified but still at large.
\n\u201cTheir actions were organized and directed by a specific person residing in the Russian Federation,\u201d the two ministries said, adding that they were cooperating with Lithuania, \u201cwhere some of the perpetrators also carried out acts of diversion.\u201d
\nSince the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has detained and convicted several individuals suspected of sabotage on behalf of Russian intelligence services, accused of assaults, arson or attempted arson.
\nIn May 2024, Poland imposed restrictions on the movements of Russian diplomats on its soil, due to Moscow\u2019s \u201cinvolvement\u201d in a \u201chybrid war.\u201d
\nFive months later, Warsaw ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Poznan, in western Poland, accusing Moscow of orchestrating \u201csabotage attempts.\u201d
\nIn December, Polish diplomacy said it was willing to close all Russian consulates in Poland if acts of \u201cterrorism\u201d continued.
\nRussia closed in January the Polish consulate in Saint Petersburg in retaliation.
\nBordering Ukraine, Poland \u2014 a NATO and European Union member \u2014 is one of the main countries through which Western nations supply weapons and ammunition to Kyiv to help Ukraine fight Russian troops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WARSAW: Polish authorities accused Russian intelligence services on Sunday of orchestrating a fire that destroyed a large shopping center last year in the capital of Warsaw. Since Russia\u2019s February 2022 offensive against Ukraine, Poland \u2014 a loyal ally of Kyiv \u2014 claims to be the target of sabotage attempts which they blame on Russia. In …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80888,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80874\/revisions\/80888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}