Poland: who is behind the railway line attack?
Unidentified perpetrators have carried out a bombing attack on a railway line in Poland that leads to Ukraine, leaving tracks in the village of Mika badly damaged. During a visit to the site, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that attack was likely aimed at blowing up a train travelling from Warsaw to Dęblin. The intelligence services are investigating.
This goes beyond hybrid war
Rzeczpospolita suspects that Moscow is behind the attack:
“No one can doubt anymore that Russia is committing hostile acts against Poland on our territory, and that a hybrid war is underway. Russian aggression has crossed our borders. This is not a classic war; we are not being attacked by tanks, bombers or infantry. ... But now we are faced with an attack that could have claimed many victims. So this war is becoming less and less hybrid.”
Expansion of the combat zone
If Russia was indeed behind this act of sabotage, the conflict will take on new dimensions, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
“Polish authorities already pinned the blame for a big fire in a Warsaw shopping centre firmly on Russia last year. Yet it had no discernible practical purpose in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine. But the damage to the railway tracks between Warsaw and the Polish-Ukrainian border, a supply line for Ukraine, is a different matter. ... It would be an act of war. And that in turn would distinguish it from the assassinations that the Kremlin - irrespective of the risks posed to uninvolved civilians - has previously carried out in Britain and Germany.”
Eastern Europe being drawn into war
In a Facebook post, political scientist Nikolai Mitrokhin points to a connection with another attack on a railway line in Siberia:
“The explosion on the railway tracks in Poland is clearly a 'response' by the [Russian military intelligence service] GRU to the successful operation by the [Ukrainian military intelligence service] HUR on the Trans-Siberian Railway, where a train was derailed in the Khabarovsk region on 13 November. And before that there were two attacks in August. The logic here is as follows: you are interfering with our transport of ammunition from North Korea so we will interfere with your ammunition deliveries from Poland. Overall, however, the grim scenario is emerging of the Russian Federation using force (hybrid methods) to draw the countries of Eastern Europe into war.”
Effective responses
Warsaw has done its homework, says Newsweek Polska:
“In recent years, Poland's responses to such threats have been increasingly effective. The arrest of perpetrators, the identification of networks with links to Georgia, Belarus or Russia, the neutralisation of cybercrime and the intensification of cooperation with Nato partners all show that the state now considers sabotage a constant risk and not just an isolated problem. Procedures for protecting critical infrastructure have been strengthened, cyber defence systems have been modernised, and thanks to the growing role of Europol and allied intelligence services, Poland no longer acts alone.”