Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that authorities in Poland arrested a Russian national accused of being recruited by Moscow to assassinate a Ukrainian-American citizen described as “inconvenient to the Putin regime.”
According to Reuters, Tusk said the suspect was detained Friday and that the intended victim was a man located in Warsaw, Poland’s capital.
“Thanks to the truly brilliant action of our services … we detained a Russian citizen recruited by Russian intelligence services,” Tusk was quoted as saying. He added that the target carried both Ukrainian and U.S. passports. “At the last minute, thanks to the action of the Internal Security Agency and the police, we managed to prevent this execution, this attack.”
News Outlet has contacted the State Department seeking comment.
FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting aboard the missile cruiser Varyag in Russia’s far eastern Sakhalin region on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. Putin previously said Russia is not waging a sabotage campaign against Europe. (Reuters)
Tusk also said Thursday that the alleged plot marked the first known instance in which “someone on the order of Russia” attempted to target an American citizen on the soil of another NATO member state, The Associated Press reported.
Tomasz Siemoniak, the Polish minister responsible for overseeing intelligence services, told the AP that the operation was conducted in cooperation with U.S. services.
The AP said it has tracked roughly 200 incidents of sabotage, arson and other disruptive acts across Europe since Russia’s war in Ukraine began, with officials tying those cases to Moscow. Putin told the AP in May that Russia is not conducting a sabotage campaign against Europe.
FILE – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaks to the media at the site where an unidentified flying object, believed to be a Russian missile, fell after violating Polish airspace in a field near Tarnawa Kolonia, near Lublin, Poland, on July 30, 2026. (Jakub Orzechowski/Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Reuters)
In June, a Russian artist who was critical of Putin was shot and killed at close range near his home in eastern Poland. Tusk said at the time that the killing had the hallmarks of a political assassination. He suggested it was possible Russia was behind it, but Polish officials have not yet attributed it to Moscow.
Last year, French officials disrupted a plot which they believe was aimed at killing Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian exile who lives under police protection and works to help military defectors flee Putin’s war.
Lithuanian officials also disrupted a plot last year to kill a Lithuanian supporter of Ukraine and another against a Russian activist.
FILE – Tusk said the alleged target was a citizen in Warsaw, Poland. (dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Officials in Germany have similarly broken up two plots: one to target the head of a German weapons company supplying Ukraine, the other against a Ukrainian military official.
