Poland detains Belarusian and Polish citizens over exile spying plot

Polish security services detained a Belarusian citizen and a Polish citizen on suspicion of spying on Belarusian exiles for Belarusian intelligence services. Jacek Dobrzyński, the security services spokesperson, announced the detentions on Thursday in Warsaw, and investigators have not announced charges.

The alleged targeting of Belarusian exiles puts Poland at the center of a longer contest over dissident safety in Europe. Poland’s internal security agency, ABW, says Belarusian services have focused on infiltrating and undermining Belarusian opposition groups operating in Poland, a warning that helps explain why exiles living in Warsaw and other cities are treated as more than routine police matters.

The case also fits into a broader policy shift in Warsaw. Prime Minister Donald Tusk established a commission to investigate Russian and Belarusian influence on Poland’s internal security and interests, and government material says that since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine, five people suspected of working with Russian or Belarusian special services have been detained in Poland. The same material says 45 Russians working at the Russian embassy in Poland were expelled for intelligence activity against Poland.

Poland has also tied its internal-security work to the fate of Belarusian prisoners and dissidents. A government notice said the release of Andrzej Poczobut and four others from Belarusian and Russian prisons, and their transfer to Poland, followed coordinated efforts by the Internal Security Agency, the Intelligence Agency, the foreign ministry, the justice ministry and the National Public Prosecutor’s Office. In another Belarus-related espionage case, prosecutors in Lublin indicted a Belarusian citizen and a Polish citizen on charges linked to cooperation with Belarusian intelligence services.

The latest detentions underline how Belarus, a close ally of Russia, continues to project pressure across borders through surveillance, recruitment and intimidation. For Poland, which has positioned itself as a refuge for exiles while hardening its counterintelligence posture, the arrests are part of a wider struggle playing out along NATO’s eastern flank.