Investigators look at a rail line broken in an explosion in Mika, subsequent to Garwolin, central Poland, on Nov. 17, 2025. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated the explosion that broken a railway line to its shut ally Ukraine was an “act of sabotage.”
Wojtek Radwanski/AFP through Getty Photographs
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Wojtek Radwanski/AFP through Getty Photographs
MIKA and WARSAW, Poland — The hike to the positioning of what native authorities consider to be Russia’s newest act of rail sabotage on Polish soil leads police officer Piotr Pokorski trudging via a few ft of snow throughout a stark white farm subject, via a thatch of useless cattails and throughout a frozen creek earlier than he pauses beneath an embankment.
“The explosion occurred right here,” he says, pointing to a small part of railroad observe that catches the frozen daylight, reflecting a bronze-colored sheen from a current restore, “and this part of observe was broken. A prepare engineer observed it simply in time to cease his prepare after which he reported it to us. Thankfully, no person was injured.”
Police officer Piotr Porkoski stands in entrance of the portion of the Warsaw-Ukraine prepare line the place Polish authorities say two Ukrainian perpetrators employed by Russia’s authorities used explosives to try to explode the observe final November. A prepare conductor observed the warped rail and known as the police.
Rob Schmitz/NPR
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Rob Schmitz/NPR
Hundreds of individuals journey on passenger trains alongside this line day-after-day, and so does army help touring from Warsaw to Ukraine. Shortly after the November assault, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated the nation’s safety providers recognized two Ukrainian suspects believed to be employed by Russia, however he stated they escaped to neighboring Belarus instantly after the assault. The Kremlin denied any involvement.
Whether or not it is shutting down airports with drones, cyberattacks, or sabotaging infrastructure, Russia’s hybrid warfare towards Europe has elevated sharply because the nation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 4 years in the past. Navy consultants say Russia is working in a grey zone to undermine assist for Ukraine, and the assaults have gotten extra harmful.
Poland Inner Safety Company spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski says the suspects within the November assault selected their goal fastidiously. “It was on a viaduct proper earlier than a curve within the observe,” he stated. “Had they succeeded in destroying the observe, the results would have been critical. Dozens of individuals may have been killed.”
Dobrzysnski says he sees the assault as a check. “The Russians wish to see how a lot they will get away with,” he says, “what the Polish response can be, how the media reacts, how our safety providers react, and what proof we uncover.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov responded that Russia is being blamed for what he known as “all manifestations” of hybrid warfare in Poland, including “Russophobia is flourishing there.”
Poland’s Inner Safety Company spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski says his workplace tracks dozens of makes an attempt every day by Russia to check Poland’s electrical, transportation, and digital infrastructure. He says earlier than Russia’s warfare in Ukraine, the assaults have been performed by brokers educated by Russia – however up to now few years, the assaults have been waged by what he calls “Disposable brokers” recruited by the messaging app Telegram who’re paid small sums to launch hybrid assaults on European soil.
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Dobrzynsnski says what’s flourishing are Russian assaults. His workplace tracks dozens of makes an attempt every day to check the nation’s electrical, transportation, and digital infrastructure. He says earlier than Russia’s warfare in Ukraine, the assaults have been performed by brokers educated by Russia – however up to now few years, the assaults have been waged by what he calls “Disposable brokers”
“They recruit these disposables via the messaging app Telegram,” Dobrzysnski says, “and so they pay them a little bit cash to do small issues at first like observing rail routes and reporting again to them, or they spray-paint anti-EU graffiti within the metropolis, issues like that. And in the event that they’re good at it, then they’re going to ask them to do extra critical issues like setting fires to buildings.”
That is how, he says, the Russians recruited a 27-year-old man from Colombia who was arrested final summer time for arson assaults on two development provide depots. Dobrzynski says Russian brokers educated the person to make incendiary units and had him movie the fires he set for broadcast on Russian state tv the place it falsely reported that the fires have been set to army depots full of help for Ukraine. “My sense is that these assaults are getting extra seen as a result of Russia is de facto making an attempt to affect the overall inhabitants in European international locations,” says Ulrike Franke, a safety knowledgeable on the European Council on Overseas Relations. “The logic being that if the inhabitants will get scared and appears like their very own safety providers, police, and many others. is not capable of counteract these assaults, they might push for a extra conciliatory stance in the direction of Russia and perhaps grow to be much less supportive of Ukraine of their protection efforts.”
Franke says Russia has scaled up its hybrid assaults on Western Europe, too, with its military of drones. Germany was peppered with drone sightings at airports all through Germany final autumn, resulting in tons of of cancelled flights. Franke says Russia’s scaled-up its hybrid assaults on Europe as a result of the Kremlin needs to ship a sign to Europeans that their governments are unable to counter such assaults.
However at what level will Europe strike again? What if that assault would have succeeded, a passenger was derailed, and dozens have been killed? “That is extremely tough to reply,” says Franke. “The second folks get killed and it turns into clear that that’s linked to Russia, we could also be coming into Article 5 territory, that means that NATO’s mutual protection clause would possibly come into motion. In fact, this by no means means any type of automated army response, however it will be fairly a powerful, robust sign.”
To this point, NATO has but to invoke Article 5 – “an assault on one is an assault on all” clause – however Franke says that with each hybrid assault, Russia is getting nearer to forcing Europe and NATO to think about a army response.
Grzegorz Sokol contributed to this report
