https://arab.news/cu72e
- Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, relations between Poland, and neighboring Belarus have sunk to a low
- Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak identified the Belarusian agent as Uladzislau N
WARSAW: Poland’s prime minister said on Tuesday that its security agency had detained a “Belarusian agent,” adding that the EU member would also expel a Belarusian diplomat for “supporting aggressive activity” against Poland.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, relations between Poland, one of Kyiv’s main supporters in the European Union, and neighboring Belarus, a Moscow ally, have sunk to a low.
Besides their tense relations over the Ukraine conflict, Poland also accuses Belarus of arranging for a wave of asylum seekers from third countries to cross the border into Poland, in what Warsaw says is a bid to destabilize the EU.
Poland’s ABW internal security agency “detained a Belarusian agent yesterday. The detention was the result of cooperation between the (intelligence) services of Romania and the Czech Republic among others,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X.
Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak identified the Belarusian agent as Uladzislau N.
He said the intelligence services of Hungary and Moldova had also been involved in the operation that resulted in the detention.
“The suspect conducted intelligence activity on Polish and Hungarian territory,” Siemoniak said on X, adding that prosecutors had charged him with espionage.
Tusk said that “a Belarusian diplomat supporting aggressive activity by Belarusian services against our country will also be expelled from Poland.”
Siemoniak said the foreign ministry had summoned the Belarusian charge d’affaires to inform him that the diplomat’s accreditation had been revoked and the envoy designated as personan non grata in Poland.
Siemoniak said the diplomat had been “directly involved in intelligence activity.”