Two Turkish citizens arrested in Germany over Wola Krobowska Starlink sabotage
Two Turkish nationals face custody in Germany in connection with a September satellite station fire in Wola Krobowska. Polish authorities blame Russian intelligence for directing the act of sabotage. Polish officials said Monday that the suspects were taken into custody across the border.
The suspects were not named under Polish privacy rules. Officials accuse them of setting fire to Starlink infrastructure on Sept. 23. The site sits about 40 kilometers south of Warsaw.
“We have no doubt that Russian intelligence services are behind this act of sabotage,” Tomasz Siemoniak said. Siemoniak oversees Poland’s intelligence services. He stated that Russian agencies recruit operatives with ties to the criminal underworld.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X. He called the incident “another act of hybrid warfare.”
Other details were not immediately available. Western officials have tracked more than 210 incidents across Europe linked to Russian malign activity since February 2022.
Officials say the operations aim to weaken support for Ukraine. The efforts also seek to spread fear and drain investigative resources across Europe. Moscow often hires proxies. Some perpetrators say they do not know Russia hired them.
Siemoniak spoke Tuesday at a security conference in Warsaw. He said Russian services carry out almost “daily acts of subversion.”
“There is not a week where activities do not happen,” Siemoniak said. “Our enemy , that is Russia’s intelligence services , changes its methods of operation and has unlimited resources.”
Siemoniak said Russian covert activity in Poland began in early 2024. Operatives used Telegram to recruit agents for strikes, including an attack on a shopping center.
Subversion investigations involve cross-border inquiries into foreign intelligence networks. European agencies share intelligence to identify local recruits and trace digital communications back to state handlers.
Norwegian security chief Beate Gangås also addressed the conference about foreign threats. “We are in the most serious situation since the Second World War,” Gangås told attendees.
