Poland Busts Russian Sabotage Team – We Are All One Step Closer To World War
Poland Busts Russian Sabotage Team – We Are All One Step Closer To World War
Yesterday Polish security services reported they had busted a six-man Russian team conducting activities on Polish soil in preparation for apparent sabotage attacks on Polish rail lines. The six men, “of Eastern origin”, had been emplacing hidden cameras on Poland’s rail network and critical infrastructure. These cameras broadcast the footage they obtained so that they could be monitored remotely.
The cameras were found principally in the vicinity of the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. That facility is a key hub through which assistance from the West flows to Ukraine. The Polish supposition is that the Russian team was acquiring the targeting data necessary for follow-on sabotage attacks designed to cut off aid to Kiev.
“The primary task of the detainees was to gather information, but it is also possible to prepare for sabotage,” Maciej Matysiak, the former deputy head of the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service, commented on the information.
The Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport is also used by Western leaders as a stop-off point en route to Ukraine. President Biden landed here on his way to Ukraine and completed his journey by train.
The once small airport has been turned into a massive logistics hub in support of the war in Ukraine. American troops are present at the facility in large numbers. The U.S. has also deployed Patriot missile batteries to the site.
At a press conference earlier today Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said the Internal Security Agency had arrested nine people suspected of spying for Russia in the case. Three were detained on Wednesday. That is apparently a change from the initial announcement that only six individuals were detained suggesting that an investigation is still in progress and holding out the possibility that other individuals might be arrested in the near future.
Kaminski said at a news conference in Warsaw that the suspects were preparing “sabotage actions aimed at paralyzing the supply of equipment, weapons, and aid to Ukraine.” He added that Polish security agents also seized cameras, electronic equipment, and GPS transmitters, which the suspects planned to place on transports carrying aid to Ukraine.
Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak suggested that the group had entered from neighboring Belarus.
The arrest of this Russian team comes in the wake of the earlier detention of a group of men found diving at night in the vicinity of a Polish oil facility through which oil flows to Germany. Those men were released before the investigation was complete and then vanished completely. There is suspicion these individuals were Russian intelligence operatives.
There have also been indications for some time that the Russians may be preparing to take action against energy infrastructure in the North Sea and against undersea communications cables in a variety of locations.
It should be noted in regard to the arrest of the apparent Russian team in Poland casing for sabotage attacks on rail lines and other targets that Poland is a member of NATO. That means that if it is attacked the other member states are required to come to its defense. The United States is a member of NATO as well. An attack on Poland is, in effect, an attack on the United States.
We are that close to being in a hot war with Russia.
In 2001 we launched an invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. In a matter of months, an American force that barely exceeded 400 men working with tribal allies toppled the Taliban. It was likely the most brilliant military campaign since World War II.
Then Big Washington took over and decided that it would spend untold quantities of blood and treasure trying to turn Afghanistan into Switzerland in Central Asia. The results of that mad enterprise are now manifest.
Our “policy makers” had no idea what they were doing.
In 2003 we launched an invasion of Iraq. In a matter of weeks, American conventional and unconventional forces working with Kurdish allies toppled Saddam. Then Big Washington got involved and decided to build a liberal democratic, European-style democracy in a nation riven by ethnic and religious divides and with no tradition of democratic rule. The country went up in flames.
Our “policy makers” had no idea what they were doing.
Now we are embarked on some mad crusade to provide Ukraine with unlimited quantities of assistance in pursuit of a completely unspecified objective. Russia and Ukraine are at war as the result of territorial disputes and Russian security concerns stemming from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and centuries of shifting borders. How precisely this threatens American national security interests has never been clearly articulated. Since we cannot specify our national security interests, we cannot in any coherent fashion say what victory looks like. We are on the precipice of war, and we don’t really know why.
Putin went into this war expecting to seize Kyiv in days, transform Ukraine into a client state and present the West with a fait accompli before it knew what was happening. His blitzkrieg has turned into trench warfare. He is preparing to push another round of conscription to fill the ranks of his depleted forces. He is pulling forty-year-old tanks out of mothballs and sending them to the front.
It is time to push both sides to the negotiating table and begin the process of ending this war. It is time for cool heads to intervene and rationalize our involvement and delineate our goals. Instead, we continue to pour jet fuel on the fire and talk blithely about toppling Putin.
Once again, our “policy makers” have no idea what they are doing.
It is time to push this conflict toward resolution. It is time to talk. The Russians are preparing to start hitting targets in Poland and likely other NATO countries as well. We are all one step closer to world war.