AP —
Poland’s prime minister said Thursday that a Russian plot to kill Ukrainian-Americans in Warsaw was thwarted by Poland before it could be carried out, adding that it was the first time “someone on Russia’s orders” had tried to attack Americans on the territory of another NATO member.
Western officials have previously warned that Russia has stepped up its targeted killing campaign since President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying it has thwarted several plots across Europe. However, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the incident was unprecedented.
The suspect was said to have been scouted by Russian secret services and was arrested by Polish authorities on August 7. Warsaw police said in a statement that the suspect will be detained for three months.
Tusk said at a news conference that Ukrainian-Americans were “offensive to the Putin regime,” without elaborating.
Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister who oversees Poland’s intelligence services, said the operation was carried out in cooperation with the US military. He said the targeted victims were American citizens of “Ukrainian origin.” Officials did not immediately provide further details.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The US State Department said it was aware of the report but had no additional information.
Russia has long been accused of targeting foreign adversaries, including by using exotic poisons. But intelligence officials have previously told The Associated Press that Russian security services are now choosing targets more aggressively, going after Russian activists, foreign supporters of Ukraine and even military defectors.
“We have to assume that the Putin regime will try to exclude people in various parts of the world who are inconvenient for various reasons,” Tusk said on Thursday. He said countries such as Poland needed to be prepared to counter such acts.
Western officials see the campaign as linked to broader Russian efforts to undermine European countries supporting Ukraine. The Associated Press has mapped nearly 200 acts of sabotage, arson and other acts of disruption across Europe since the start of the war that authorities link to Russia. President Vladimir Putin told The Associated Press in June that Russia was not carrying out subversive activities against Europe.
In 2006, British authorities accused Russia of involvement in the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London with radioactive polonium. Britain also blames Russia for the 2018 attempt to kill former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok.
German authorities say that Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Russian-organized rebel commander in Chechnya, was shot dead by Vadim Krasikov in a Berlin park in 2019. Krasikov was exchanged in a spy swap and later welcomed by President Putin.
In June, a Russian artist who was critical of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead at close range near his home in eastern Poland. Tusk said at the time that the killing of Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, had the characteristics of a political assassination. He suggested Russia may be behind the attack, but Polish officials have not yet blamed Russia.
Last year, French authorities thwarted an apparent plot to kill Vladimir Oshekin, a Russian exile who lives under police protection and works with military defectors fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s war. Lithuanian authorities also thwarted a plot last year to kill Lithuanian supporters of Ukrainian supporters and Russian activists. German authorities similarly dismantled two plots. One targeted the head of a German arms company that supplies Ukraine, and the other targeted Ukrainian military officials.
In 2024, Polish authorities arrested a man on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. That year, a defected Russian helicopter pilot was killed in Spain, and Russian agents were the main suspects.
“This operation is not a coincidence or coincidence,” a senior European intelligence official previously told The Associated Press. “There is political approval.”
