{"id":5695,"date":"2026-05-09T12:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/5695\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T12:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:22:12","slug":"disposable-spies-poland-records-unprecedented-number-of-russian-espionage-cases-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/5695\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Disposable spies’: Poland records unprecedented number of Russian espionage cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year and the year before saw a rise in espionage activity in Poland, \u201cprimarily on the part of Russian and closely allied Belarusian special services as well as China\u201d, the Internal Security Agency (ABW) said in a report<\/a> published on May 6.<\/p>\n

As a result, Poland conducted as many counter-intelligence investigations in 2024 and 2025 as it had in the previous three decades. <\/p>\n

European law enforcement and intelligence officials began noticing these efforts back in 2022, The New Yorker reported<\/a> in February.\u00a0Job offers began appearing in online chat groups, usually on Telegram, directed at Russian-speaking populations \u2013 Russians, but also Belarusians and Ukrainians.<\/p>\n

Polish intelligence services came up with a name for these isolated agents recruited by Russian intelligence \u2013 jednorazowi agenci \u2013 or \u201csingle-use agents\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ABW report said Russian intelligence services were gradually shifting from single-use agents to more \u201cprofessional\u201d networks to carry out sabotage and other campaigns across Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Disposable spies\u2019 are very useful for generating chaos, radicalising public opinion, strengthening intergroup antagonisms, distracting attention and testing the resilience of the state apparatus,\u201d said Arkadiusz Nyzio, a Polish researcher and author of a report<\/a> on Russia\u2019s use of middlemen to create chaos in Europe.<\/p>\n

They have also laid out the groundwork for more complex operations on the continent, Nyzio stated. <\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russia has been using such middlemen to create both social unrest and physically destroy targets in Europe. \u201cIt\u2019s very cheap, offers a veneer of deniability, and the spread can be huge,\u201d said a Polish official interviewed<\/a> by The New Yorker.<\/p>\n

Russian sabotage efforts have targeted not only Polish military facilities and vital infrastructure but also soft targets like shopping malls and other public venues.<\/p>\n

In one of the more dramatic incidents, a fire on May 12, 2024, destroyed one of Warsaw\u2019s largest shopping centres<\/a>, Marywilska 44. Nearly 1,200 boutiques went up in flames, leaving behind a charred landscape although no one was killed. Nearly two years later, the remains of the shopping centre have been razed.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a post on X that Poland knows “for sure<\/a>” that an arson attack ordered by Russian special services was behind the blaze.<\/p>\n

Increasing complexity<\/p>\n

From 2024 to 2025, Russia began shifting towards creating complex \u201csabotage cells\u201d that relied more on \u201cclosed structures\u201d like those found in organised crime, the ABW wrote. \u201cRussians prefer individuals with experience in law enforcement,\u201d the report said, citing in particular former soldiers, police officers or mercenaries from paramilitary organisations like the Wagner Group.<\/p>\n

But the use of single-use spies will not disappear, Nyzio says. From the start, he says, these campaigns have been about \u201cintelligence operations at different levels: employing various methods and tools to achieve various outcomes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should think of these as complementary cogs in a machine, not as replacements. Disposable spies have arguably helped map out the situation in Europe. The speed and way they were neutralised, as well as the public\u2019s reaction, provided valuable insights into the resilience of the state and society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different actors and various methods are used for separate tasks. \u201cWhile disposable spies spread anti-Ukrainian propaganda\u201d \u2013 like putting up posters with anti-Ukrainian or anti-NATO messages \u2013 \u201cthe \u2018professionals\u2019 sabotage railway infrastructure and intelligence officers, operating under particularly deep cover, infiltrate state institutions\u201d, Nyzio says.<\/p>\n

Last November, an explosion damaged<\/a> a major Polish railway line in what Prime Minister Tusk called an \u201cunprecedented act of sabotage\u201d. The incident could have caused mass casualties if a train driver hadn\u2019t noticed an issue with the track<\/a> and warned others in time.<\/p>\n

The fear and paranoia such sabotage can spread is the objective.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say every day, \u2018Russia is attacking us,\u2019 then they don\u2019t really have to attack us anymore,\u201d a European intelligence official<\/a> told The New Yorker.<\/p>\n

Russia, working with its close ally Belarus, hopes to influence Poland\u2019s upcoming parliamentary elections in Poland, according to Nyzio. \u201cThere is a strong possibility that next year\u2019s elections will result in the formation of a far-right government, featuring prominent anti-Ukrainian and anti-European politicians who propagate every conceivable conspiracy theory. The establishment of such a government would signify a geopolitical realignment of Poland, including the abandonment or significant weakening of Poland\u2019s support for the Ukrainian cause. This represents a dream scenario for Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the long term, Russia\u2019s objective remains the same as always: to destabilise Poland and create divisions between Western allies, Nyzio says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weaker, more internally conflicted and more at odds with the West Poland is, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

(With AP)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year and the year before saw a rise in espionage activity in Poland, \u201cprimarily on the part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4651,4652,64,74,4656,4615,9,4653,126,4649,4650,4655,4654],"class_list":{"0":"post-5695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-poland","8":"tag-abw","9":"tag-arkadiusz-nyzio","10":"tag-donald-tusk","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-intelligence-officials","13":"tag-internal-security-agency","14":"tag-poland","15":"tag-polish-intelligence-services","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-russian-intelligence","18":"tag-russian-intelligence-services","19":"tag-russian-special-services","20":"tag-the-new-yorker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}