Polish authorities on Oct. 12 blamed Russian intelligence services for an arson attack on a Starlink ground station in Poland on Sept. 23, and said two Turkish citizens had been detained as suspects in Germany.
The two suspects had been arrested on behalf of Polish services on Oct. 10 under suspicion of having set fire to the station in Wola Krobowska, in Poland’s Masovian Voivodeship, said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a post on X. He called the attack “another act of hybrid warfare.”
Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister coordinating Polish special services, made Russia responsible for the attack, reported AP.
“We have no doubt that Russian intelligence services are behind this act of sabotage,” he said, according to AP.
He also said that “It is worth adding that Russian services are increasingly turning to individuals linked to the criminal underworld,” according to Deutsche Welle.
On Sept. 24, Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski told reporters that a fire at a Starlink ground station in Poland may have been a deliberate attempt to disrupt internet access used by Ukrainian forces at the front.
The station is operated by the state-owned telecommunications company Exatel and serves as an internet hub that carries traffic through Poland, including to Ukraine, Gawkowski said.
He suggested Russia could be behind the incident, describing it as potentially part of Moscow’s hybrid warfare.
Polish authorities are also investigating an alleged assassination plot targeting Tusk and his deputy, Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson for Polish intelligence agencies, said on Oct. 11.
Police received numerous reports of a possible assassination attempt, after which a meeting was called between representatives of the Interior and Administration Ministry, the State Protection Service, and the Internal Security Agency.
“We are taking this matter very seriously,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said at a press briefing on Oct. 11.