Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said Russia’s secret services were responsible for a massive fire that nearly destroyed a Warsaw shopping centre in May 2024.
Following an investigation, Poland’s foreign ministry has closed the Russian consulate in Kraków.
“We already know for sure that the large fire in Warsaw was the result of arson ordered by Russian services. The actions were coordinated by a person based in Russia. Some of the perpetrators are already in custody, the rest have been identified and are being sought,” Tusk wrote on X May 11, announcing the results of the year-long investigation.
Poland claimed to be a target of Russian sabotage actions, including arson and cyberattacks. Officials cited them as part of a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to destabilise countries that support Ukraine.
“The Polish authorities have in-depth knowledge of the order and course of the arson and the way in which the perpetrators documented it,” said justice minister Adam Bodnar and interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak in a separate statement.
“Their actions were organised and directed by an identified person living in Russia,” they said.
In March, Lithuanian prosecutors accused Russia’s military intelligence of orchestrating a similar arson attack on an IKEA store in Vilnius. This fire broke out only three days before the shopping centre fire in neighbouring Poland.
Russia denied involvement in both arson attacks. On May 12, Poland’s foreign ministry announced it would close Russia’s consulate in Kraków, having last year closed its one in Poznań.
“We don’t commit acts of sabotage on the territory of the Russian Federation and have the right to expect Russia not to engage in such hostile acts” said Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski on announcing the decision to close the consulate.
The fire broke out at the Warsaw shopping mall in the early hours of May 12, 2024. It spread quickly and, by the time it was brought under control several hours later, destroyed almost 90 per cent of the premises. There were no casualties because the shopping centre was closed for the night.
Little more than a week later, Tusk said it was “likely” that Russia was behind it.
The fire was part of a series of acts of sabotage in Poland and other countries in the region that authorities have blamed on Russia.
Allegedly, Russian intelligence services have been recruiting and hiring Belarusian and Ukrainian migrants to carry out such attacks.
In March this year, Poland charged a Belarusian citizen with carrying out a terrorist arson attack in Warsaw on behalf of Russia. Prosecutors said the fire was ignited in a very similar manner to the one at the shopping mall, just a month later.
Ukraine has neutralised a group of 19 agents from the Russian Federal Security Service plotting arson attacks on shopping centres, petrol stations, pharmacies, and markets across Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic States, its security services confirmed. https://t.co/5KO2uiyqHr
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 25, 2024
