The order to carry out sabotage on Poland’s railway network may have been issued personally by Vladimir Putin, retired lieutenant colonel Maciej Korowaj, formerly of Polish military intelligence, told Gazeta Wyborcza.
The newspaper writes that one of the suspects in the sabotage case, Yevhenii Ivanov, had already attempted to organise an explosion at a military drone production plant in Lviv. Ukrainian counterintelligence then recruited the saboteur hired by Ivanov to carry out the blast. Ukrainian officers managed to mislead the Russian security services by staging an explosion; the saboteur sent “evidence” to his handler and received payment. He was later recruited by GRU officer Yuriy Sizov to carry out sabotage attacks in Leroy Merlin shopping centres in Kyiv. This is how Sizov’s name appeared on EU sanctions lists, which state that he serves in GRU military unit No. 92154, known as “Senezh”.
“Was the sabotage operation in Poland, as well as in Ukraine, directed by Yuriy Sizov from unit No. 92154? If so, this means that the attack was carried out by a special unit of the security services of the Russian Federation,” Gazeta Wyborcza writes.
The newspaper also cites Korowaj’s opinion.
“If they were behind the attack in Poland, it means the order must have been issued directly by the president of the Russian Federation. Especially if the operation resulted in the death of citizens of a NATO member state. It is a self-sufficient unit, both in terms of intelligence capabilities and combat,” the former Polish military intelligence officer is quoted as saying.
The newspaper also contacted an unnamed source familiar with the details of the sabotage investigation to clarify whether investigators share these suspicions.
“We are analysing this issue,” the source responded.
