Warsaw threatens “retaliatory measures” after Belarus detains Polish monk accused of spying

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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.

Belarus has announced the detention of a Polish monk whom it accuses of carrying out espionage on behalf of Poland in relation to upcoming Russian-Belarusian military exercises.

However, Poland’s government says that the accusations are “absurd” and that the incident has been staged as a “provocation” by Minsk. Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned today that Warsaw is “preparing retaliatory measures” against Minsk.

Belarusian state broadcaster Belarus 1, which is a mouthpiece for the authoritarian government, aired footage of the man – identified as Grzegorz G. and born in Kraków in 1998 – being detained in the town of Lepel.

It said he had in his possession cash in multiple currencies, a SIM card registered to another person, and an eight-page printout of a document on upcoming Zapad-2025 Russian-Belarusian military exercises marked as confidential.

In the footage broadcast by the station, Grzegorz G. can be heard speaking in Polish and apparently confirming that the documents pertain to the Zapad exercises, which begin later this month.

Belarus 1 also claims that the monk had collected information on military facilities on behalf of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and that he contacted a Belarusian through social media, offering monthly payments as well as gifts such as coffee and chocolate in return for cooperation with the Polish security services.

The Pole now faces an espionage charge, the channel reports. According to Polish news website Wirtualna Polska, Grzegorz G. is a monk from the Carmelite order who was until recently based at a monastery in Kraków.

Polish authorities, however, immediately dismissed the incident as a stunt staged by Belarus. This is “another provocation by the regime of [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko aimed at our country”, tweeted Jacek Dobrzyński, the spokesman for Poland’s security services.

“The Polish security services do not use monks to gather information about military exercises,” he added.

Foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński said that Poland’s embassy in Minsk would “take all diplomatic and legal measures to assist and support the Polish citizen detained by the Belarusian services”. He added that “the foreign ministry treats this incident as a provocation”.

“We know what kind of regime this is, we know what to expect from it,” added foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, quoted by the Rzeczpospolita daily. “We’ve already completed government consultations [on this incident]. I think the matter will not go unanswered.”

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, meanwhile, said that the Belarusian claims against the monk are “absurd” and that “there is no way we should accept this type of provocation or nonsense from the Belarusian side”. He pledged that Poland “will prepare retaliatory measures if this situation does not change”.

Tusk also revealed that he had been informed that the Polish monk was in Belarus to visit a friend who is a priest living and working in the country. Belarus has a large ethnic Polish community who are mostly Catholic.

Poland and Belarus have enjoyed tense relations in recent years. Belarus has engineered a crisis on the border with Poland by encouraging and assisting tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – to try to cross into the European Union.

Meanwhile, Minsk has also clamped down on the country’s ethnic Polish minority, including imprisoning some of its leaders on trumped-up charges.

Poland, meanwhile, has welcomed large numbers of Belarusian refugees – including exiled opposition leaders – fleeing persecution, in particular in the wake of the protests that followed the rigged presidential elections of 2020.

In May this year, a Belarusian man was jailed for two years in Poland after being found guilty of carrying out espionage on behalf of Minsk.

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: Belarus 1 screenshot

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.