Poland arrests Russian hockey player for alleged espionage

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June 30 () –

The Polish authorities have announced this Friday the arrest of a Russian citizen who “acted under the guise of an athlete” and played in the national ice hockey league, accused of crimes of alleged espionage.

“Russian spies fall one by one,” the Polish Justice Minister, Zibigniew Ziobro, celebrated on his Twitter profile, where he also stressed that this is the fourteenth alleged “member of an espionage network” that Warsaw has managed to stop .

As Ziobro has highlighted, the operation that has culminated in the arrest of the Russian citizen has been made up of agents from both the Polish National Prosecutor’s Office and the country’s Internal Security Agency.

The hockey player, of whom no further information has been disclosed, was arrested on June 11 in Polish territory, where he arrived in October 2021, as reported by the Prosecutor’s Office to the PAP agency. The detainee would have received regular payments for his espionage activities.

According to information from the aforementioned agency, the spy network of which the detainee was a part was especially interested in the railway network. Poland has become an important merchandise distribution point for Ukraine, which is at war with Russia.

For the moment, Moscow has been cautious and, as Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov has acknowledged, Russia still does not have “detailed information”, according to the German agency DPA. In fact, the Russian Foreign Ministry has sent a note to Warsaw requesting more details about what happened.

“Until now, no official information has been received from the competent Polish authorities to the Russian Embassy and consular offices in Poland on this matter. We are keeping the matter under control,” the Russian legation in Warsaw said.