Secret services: Poland's police arrest suspected Russian agent

Warsaw. Police in Poland have arrested a Russian citizen who is said to have spied on railway facilities for a foreign secret service. The 55-year-old Russian came to the attention of officers in Swidnica, Silesia, when he was photographing trains passing by and the railway infrastructure in the city, local police said.

When evaluating the material that was stored on the man's storage devices, the officials seized hundreds of thousands of files with photos of important transport facilities, it said. The suspect ended up in custody for three months.

The government speaks of an arrest as a rarity

“The fact that it has been possible to arrest a Russian citizen is rather rare,” said the spokesman for the intelligence services coordinator, Tomasz Siemoniak. So far, Russian secret services have avoided using their own citizens in the front row and have rather recruited “disposable agents” from other countries for these tasks.

The EU and NATO country Poland is one of the most important political and military supporters of Ukraine, which is attacked by Russia. It has also taken in almost a million refugees from neighboring countries. The government in Warsaw accuses the secret services of Russia and its ally Belarus of sending many agents into the country.