An explosion on a Polish railway line used to deliver aid to Ukraine was “initiated by Russian secret services”, a Polish government official has said.
Evidence suggests the blast over the weekend was “initiated by the Russian secret services”, Jacek Dobrzyński, the spokesman for Poland’s security services minister, said after a meeting of the National Security Committee.
The Polish prime minister has said the two people responsible are Ukrainian, that they collaborated with Russian intelligence, have left Poland and are now in Belarus.
In what Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an “unprecedented act of sabotage”, a segment of a rail line linking Poland’s capital, Warsaw, to the border with Ukraine was blown up over the weekend.
Another segment further south was also damaged in what officials say was likely sabotage as well.
The prime minister has announced he will introduce a higher threat level on certain railway lines and use the
military to protect key infrastructure.
The third tier threat level will apply to certain railway lines, while the rest of the country will remain under the second alert level.
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Authorities are investigating the planned use of a camera found near the blast site and army patrols have been sent to check railways and key infrastructure in the east of the country.
Polish prosecutors have begun an investigation into “acts of sabotage of a terrorist nature” for the benefit of foreign intelligence.
Polish prosecutors have initiated an investigation into “acts of sabotage of a terrorist nature” directed against railway infrastructure and committed for the benefit of foreign intelligence.
Both incidents took place on the Warsaw-Lublin line.
Prosecutors said the actions could have resulted in disaster and the large-scale loss of life.
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In the first incident, an explosion damaged the tracks near the village of Mika, about 60 miles south-east of Warsaw.
In a second incident, power lines were destroyed in the area of Puławy, about 30 miles from Lublin.
Trains carrying passengers were forced to stop at both locations, but no one was hurt.
On Monday, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said: “The explosion was most likely intended to blow up the train.”
