Prosecutors in Poland announced on Friday that they had apprehended a Russian professional ice hockey player on spying allegations, making him the 14th individual arrested as part of one espionage network. Prosecutors said in a statement that the player for a first-division Polish team was arrested in the southern Polish district of Silesia. The player and his team were not identified publicly. According to prosecutors, he landed in Poland in October of 2021.
Poland, a vital hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, claims to have become a major target for Russian espionage, accusing Moscow of attempting to destabilize the country. “Russian spies are falling in one by one!” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro wrote on Twitter. “A spy who acted under the guise of an athlete was caught. The Russian was a player of a first division club.”
Prosecutors claim he engaged in tasks such as identifying key infrastructure for which he was compensated. He will be held in pre-trial detention and may face up to 10 years in prison. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, Moscow has demanded an explanation from Poland regarding the arrest of Russian citizens.
Poland announced in March that it had dismantled a Russian spy network operating in the nation and detained nine persons suspected of organizing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail connections to Ukraine. In April, it announced the establishment of a temporary 200-meter exclusion zone surrounding its Swinoujscie Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility, citing fears of Russian spying.
