Tusk says Russia ordered 2024 arson attack on Warsaw shopping centre
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on May 11 that Russian intelligence services ordered a May 2024 arson attack on the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw.
"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Tusk on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
"We have in-depth knowledge of the order and course of the arson and the way in which the perpetrators documented it. Their actions were organized and directed by an identified person staying in the Russian Federation," Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar and Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak in another statement.
On May 12, 2024, a massive fire destroyed a shopping center in Warsaw which houses approximately 1,400 stores.
Western intelligence officials have reportedly warned about increasing Russian sabotage operations across Europe. Arson attacks have previously targeted other EU countries, raising suspicions of a coordinated Russian effort to destabilize the countries that support Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Polish authorities are cooperating with Lithuania, where the detained suspects allegedly carried out additional sabotage attacks.
Lithuanian authorities previously said they suspect Russia's intelligence services of orchestrating arson attacks on an IKEA warehouse in Vilnius, and had also linked Russia to the Warsaw shopping center attack.
The attack on the Ikea warehouse caused an estimated 500,000 euros ($545,000) in damage.
No additional details were provided by officials as to the details surrounding the investigation into the fire, nor on the suspects detained.
A number of suspected spy networks, allegedly run by Minsk and Moscow, have been uncovered in Poland over the past years.
Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD said on April 22 that Russia is stepping up its hybrid attacks aimed at European allies.
"We see that the Russian threat against Europe is increasing, including after a possible end of the war against Ukraine," MIVD director Peter Reesink said in the agency's annual report.
Read also: Russia intensifying hybrid attacks against Europe, Dutch intelligence saysWe've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
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