Poland launches chatbot for reporting Russian sabotage and recruitment attempts

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) has launched a chatbot that allows people to report acts of sabotage as well as attempts to recruit them by foreign intelligence agencies.

The new service has been launched on Telegram, an encrypted instant-messaging service that has been used by Russia to recruit and instruct operatives in Poland – often Ukrainian and Belarusian immigrants – to carry out acts of espionage, sabotage and propaganda.

The chatbot can be used to “quickly, conveniently and anonymously report any incident of sabotage, especially recruitment attempts by foreign services”, said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for Poland’s security services, announcing the new service on Thursday.

When Dobrzyński mentioned “foreign services”, the flags of Russia and its ally Belarus appeared on screen. “Report it, and we’ll take care of the rest,” he added. “Help us ensure your safety.”

Those who access the Telegram channel see messages, in Polish and Russian, asking if, for example, they have been asked by someone to “take photographs of important places or engage in other prohibited activities”

Polish technology news website Spider’s Web, however, questioned whether encouraging people to use Telegram, a service with opaque ownership and where many extremist, terrorist and criminal groups operate, is a good idea.

Last month, after two Ukrainian citizens working on behalf of Russia sabotaged a rail line in Poland, Wiesław Kukuła, the chief of the general staff of the Polish armed forces, announced that an application would soon be launched to help people report potential cases of sabotage.

Poland has been hit by a series of acts of sabotage in recent years carried out by operatives recruited by Russia, including an arson attack that last year destroyed Warsaw’s largest shopping centre.

Last month, Polish prosecutors filed charges against a Russian man whom they accuse of orchestrating one such network through Telegram, which he used to order surveillance of military sites, sabotage, and the dissemination of pro-Russian propaganda.

Earlier this month, Poland-based Russian-language news service Vot Tak, reported that Russian recruiters are using fake job adverts in Telegram channels aimed at Ukrainians living in Poland to try to find people willing to carry out acts of sabotage.

Such operatives are often referred to as “disposable agents” because, unlike traditional spies, they are low-cost recruits, already on the ground, who are hired to carry out tasks without training or experience.

In October, the minister in charge of Poland’s security services, Tomasz Siemoniak, publicly appealed to Ukrainians, Poland’s largest immigrant group, not to give in to the temptation of earning money by carrying out espionage or sabotage on behalf of Russia.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.