Poland charges Russian man with directing sabotage and spying from Moscow region

Polish authorities have charged a Russian national in absentia with directing a sabotage and espionage network in Poland on behalf of the Kremlin's intelligence services.

Mikhail Mirgorodsky, 28, is accused of leading an organised criminal group of at least 30 people who carried out sabotage on Polish soil at the behest of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), prosecutors said in a statement on Tuesday.

While residing in Russia, Mirgorodsky allegedly oversaw "espionage, sabotage, subversion and propaganda activities on behalf of the aforementioned intelligence," prosecutors said.

He used the Telegram messaging app to direct the group and his expertise in cryptocurrency to finance their activities in Poland, according to officials.

Mirgorodsky — a mathematician who is said to live in a town in the Moscow region — faces five charges, including organising and leading a criminal group, arson attacks, ordering threats against Ukrainians in Poland and financing crime with cryptocurrency.

Polish prosecutors said they had initiated a search for the suspect with an arrest warrant and taken steps to launch an international manhunt through an Interpol red notice.

In 2023, 16 members of Mirgorodsky's network were arrested, including a dozen Ukrainians, three Belarusians and one Russian citizen, according to Poland's Internal Security Agency (ABW). They were jailed for terms ranging from 13 months to six years.

As a result, the group's attempt in 2023 to derail trains transporting weapons and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through Poland was foiled, authorities said.

As part of the ongoing investigation, eight others — three Belarusians, a Ukrainian, a Lithuanian, a Polish citizen and two Russians, including Mirgorodsky — have also been charged, the ABW said. Six of them are located outside Poland.

Further efforts are underway to identify at least six other suspected members of the group, according to the ABW.

The development comes a month after an explosion on a railway track in Poland that Warsaw blamed on Ukrainian nationals working as agents for Russian intelligence.

Polish officials say the nation is the target of espionage and hybrid war attacks initiated by Moscow that have grown more serious following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, Poland has detained dozens of people over suspected sabotage and espionage on its territory on behalf of Russia or Belarus.

Security agencies across Europe have accused Russia of staging dozens of attacks and other sabotage incidents on the continent, often using people with passports other than Russian for its activities, such as Bulgarian, Moldovan or Ukrainian.

Moscow has repeatedly denied such allegations, despite a slew of evidence and court cases proving otherwise.