Belarusian convicted for preparing arson in Poland on behalf of foreign intelligence

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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.

A Belarusian man has been convicted in Poland of preparing an act of sabotage on behalf of foreign intelligence. The 28-year-old, who can be named only as Vitaliy S. under Polish privacy law, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

The authorities have not identified which country he was working for. However, Poland has in recent years been a primary target for sabotage carried out by operatives on behalf of Russia, many of whom have been detained, charged and convicted.

In July 2025, Vitaliy S. carried out preparations to undertake sabotage in the form of an arson attack on a warehouse in the eastern Polish city of Chełm, reported broadcaster Radio Zet from his trial. He was paid the equivalent of 1,474 zloty (€337) in cryptocurrency.

According to Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW), he had been recruited via the Telegram messaging service and was tasked with filming the warehouse and sending prepared material about it to his handlers.

Vitaliy S. was detained in August 2025, charged with espionage and then indicted to stand trial in July this year. He had faced up to eight years in prison, but, on the first day of his trial at the regional court in Lublin, accepted a sentence of three and a half years agreed with prosecutors, reports Polskie Radio.

Poland has in recent years detained, charged and in some cases convicted dozens of agents accused of carrying out espionage, sabotage and other so-called “hybrid actions” on behalf of Russia and its ally Belarus.

Many such actions have been carried out not by trained operatives sent to Poland, but by so-called “disposable agents”, often immigrants and refugees from Ukraine and Belarus already in Poland, who are hired through Telegram and paid in cryptocurrency to carry out acts of sabotage and espionage.

A report by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism published earlier this year found that Poland was the “primary focus” of Russia’s growing campaign of sabotage in Europe.

Those incidents have included a number of arson attacks, including one that caused Warsaw’s biggest shopping centre to burn down. Recent fires at a drone factory and a satellite internet ground station have also been blamed on Russia.

Last year, two men working on behalf of Russia used explosives in an attempt to derail a train before fleeing across the border into Belarus.

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.

Main image credit: Służby Specjalne (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.