A pair of Russian nationals have reportedly been arrested in Poland for spreading propaganda materials for the Wagner PMC mercenary group in a possible effort to recruit Poles and both individuals are suspected of espionage activities.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński announced the arrest of the two Russians on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “The ABW [Poland’s domestic spy agency], in cooperation with the Police, identified and detained two Russians who were distributing propaganda materials of the Wagner Group in Krakow and Warsaw. Both heard the allegations, regarding espionage, and they were arrested.”
According to a Facebook post by Krakow city councillor Łukasz Wantuch made last week, the posters found in his city were advertising recruitment for PMC Wagner and stated “We are here, Join Us,” along with a QR code that led to a recruitment website for the mercenary group.
The pair are believed to have posted as many as 300 leaflets across Krakow and Warsaw and had at least 3,000 pieces of pro-Wagner propaganda overall, according to the press office of the minister responsible for coordinating special services.
The two men were named by Polish officials as Aleksiej T. and Andriej G. and the pair were allegedly paid around $5,000 by Russian officials to hand out the leaflets.
Prosecutors have since charged them both with espionage activities as well as associating with and trying to recruit for a mercenary group banned under international law. The charges could net the pair as much as ten years in a Polish prison.
It is believed the two men were planning to depart Poland on August 12th but were arrested before they could leave the country. They remain in pre-trial detention.
The arrests come less than two weeks after Poland detained a Belarusian national accused of spying for the Russians.
The press service of Poland’s minister-coordinator of intelligence and security services added that the ABW was investigating a larger spy network stating, “The ABW is continuing to investigate further details of the activity of said spy ring and to identify all individuals tied to the group, and therefore does not rule out the possibility of further arrests in the future.”
Since PMC Wagner’s mutiny against the Russian Ministry of Defence in June, some members of the group have taken up residency in Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko was able to mediate a compromise between the two sides.
Several European Union member states bordering Belarus have expressed discomfort with Wagner PMC members in Belarus, including Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš, who stated, “We keep a very wary eye on everything that occurs in Belarus with [Wagner chief Yevgeny] Prigozhin there and an unknown number of very trained and skilled fighters who presumably will be joining him.”
The Latvian PM went on to acknowledge the threat from the mercenaries, stating they “would probably not be a frontal military threat, but the threat of attempted infiltration into Europe for unknown purposes. So that means we need to heighten our border awareness and make sure that we can control that.”
In July, Poland began reinforcing its border with Belarus and announced last week that it would be deploying 10,000 troops along the border with Belarus.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has done nothing to dissuade Polish fears, stating that he personally was holding Wagner troops back from “excursions” into Poland.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has claimed that Wagner members have been spotted heading toward the region known as the Suwalki gap, which is a part of the land that connects Poland with Lithuania and lies between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, formerly a part of German Prussia until the end of the Second World War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his own accusations against Poland, claiming their military build-up in the east of the country is part of Poland’s own territorial ambitions in western Ukraine, and Belarus has warned that any attacks on Belarus will be considered attacks against Russia.
