Putin spy ring busted trying to destroy Polish airport and railway used by Western leaders to visit Kyiv & send weapons
A RUSSIAN spy ring has been busted after allegedly plotting to sabotage an airport and railway used by Western leaders visiting Kyiv.
Nine of Vladimir Putin's spooks have been arrested, accused of targeting the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport and setting up secret cameras along vital transport routes.
The airport was used by Western leaders including Joe Biden as a stop-off on their way into the war-torn country.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his predecessor Boris Johnson are also believed to have landed at the site on their respective visits to Kyiv, as well as for Volodymyr Zelensky's secret mission to Washington.
The small airport has been turned into a huge logistics hub and is so sensitive the US has installed Patriot air defence missiles to protect it.
Military and cargo aircraft from the US and Europe regularly fly in and out of the airport and American troops can be seen there.
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Nine people have now been arrested by Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) on suspicion of preparing plans for sabotage,.
The spy cell are also accused of installing dozens of secret cameras to film aid being delivered to Ukraine.
These were placed beside railway junctions and important transport routes, including the airport which is just 62 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Poland's interior minister Mariusz Kaminski said: "The suspects conducted intelligence activities against Poland and prepared acts of sabotage at the request of Russian intelligence.
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"Internal Security Agency officers secured cameras, electronic equipment, as well as GPS transmitters that were to be mounted on transports with help for Ukraine."
Biden, Sunak and Johnson all secretly boarded armoured trains on their trips to Kyiv after being ushered in motorcades from the airport.
It is understood they used the same high-security line Zelensky took from the capital and across the border to Przemysl in Poland.
On his visit to Ukraine, Biden flew into the airport on a low-key Boeing C-32 jet instead of the larger Air Force One jumbo jet.
Poland is one of Ukraine's strongest allies and arrested several suspected spies have been arrested since the war began in February, after the Russian invasion.
The former deputy head of Poland’s military counter-intelligence service Colonel Maciej Matysiak explained what the spies would have been looking out for.
He told radio station they would have been gathering data on the number of transports, their security, and the type of equipment that reaches Ukraine from the West.
Matysiak said: "Poland is probably the most important logistics centre for trans-shipment of all support transport equipment, weapons, ammunition, fuels in relation to Ukraine.
“It is important for the Russians to know how much and what kind of equipment we provide to the Ukrainians.”
He said the Kremlin will be able to see whether Ukraine “has more tanks, whether there are planes, how much fuel is delivered to Ukraine, when exactly and how often”.
“Russia is then able to assess how much Ukraine is able to cope,” he said.”
He said the spies could have been plotting to sabotage rail tracks, start fires and paralyse the software used to run railways.
“I am rather surprised that we are only now talking about it and that this topic was not in circulation before and that we did not know about the disclosure of this type of activity,” he said.
Kaminski added that the group had also been ordered to carry out propaganda activities to destabilise relations between Poland and Ukraine, and they had been paid for their activities.
A Russian citizen, who is a long-term resident in Poland and ran a business there, was last month charged with spying for Russia between 2015 and 2022.
He was allegedly involved with historical reconstruction groups, where he made contacts with Polish military personnel.
The man was arrested in April last year following an investigation that found he allegedly collected information on the organisational structure of Polish military units in the north-east of the country.
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A Spanish national of Russian origin, who was identified as an agent for Russia's military intelligence agency was arrested last year on suspicion of spying for Moscow.
A Polish employee of the Warsaw Registry Office was arrested on suspicion of transferring operationally valuable data to the Russian intelligence services last year.
