Poland charges two Ukrainians with torching cars for Russia

Two Ukrainians arrested Nov. 3 by Poland's Internal Security Agency (ABW) are accused of setting cars on fire on orders from Russian services. The agency and prosecutors made the case public on Tuesday.

It was a false-flag operation. Before burning the vehicles in one of Poland's large cities, which the statements do not name, the men swapped the license plates for ones resembling those on Ukrainian military cars. According to the National Prosecutor's Office, the aim was to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment in a country that is among Kyiv's closest allies.

Searches after the arrest, in Mińsk Mazowiecki on the outskirts of Warsaw, turned up data storage devices and narcotics. The two are also accused of scouting critical infrastructure and military sites across the country. They were paid for each task, partly in cryptocurrency.

On Nov. 4 a prosecutor from the Łódź office charged them with spying for a foreign intelligence service and with sabotage, under Article 130 of the Criminal Code. They face 10 years to life in prison. A court ordered three months of pretrial detention, which prosecutors sought citing flight risk and the severity of the possible sentence.

Warsaw has long accused Russia and Belarus of a hybrid campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation, which Moscow denies. Here the target was social peace: Poland hosts hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, and a fire that looked like the work of Ukraine's army would have cast suspicion on them. For readers in Mexico, the case shows that disinformation can also be carried out with physical acts, and not just with social media posts.

Authorities have not released the suspects' names, the number of cars burned or the city. The accusations are the prosecutors' and there has been no verdict.

"Russian services are looking for operatives. The ABW identifies and detains them."