The Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, opens Russia of arson of a commercial complex in Warsaw. One of the authors was arrested. “We will catch you all!”
Fire at Marywilska PHOTO Complex: Attila Husejnow / Zuma Press / Profimedia
The Russian secret services were behind a massive fire that almost completely destroyed a commercial center in Warsaw in May 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday, after a one-year investigation, reports Reuters, taken over by Agerpres.
“Now we certainly know that the big fire at the Marywilska shopping center in Warsaw has been caused by the Russian special services. Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, everyone else is identified and sought. We will catch you all!” Tusk wrote on platform X.
Poland was a target of sabotage actions, which officials said they are part of a “hybrid war” carried by Russia to destabilize the functioning of Ukraine, involving tactics such as fires and cyber attacks.
Also, Lithuanian prosecutors accused, in March, the Russian military (GRU) secret services of orchestrated the fire caused in a Vilnius store in May and suggested that it could have been targeted because the Swedish chain logo has the same colors as the flag of Ukraine.
The flames broke out in the store in the capital of Lithuania three days before the Marywilska shopping center in Poland, a neighboring country, was also affected by a fire. Russia denies sabotage attacks and states that the West feeds anti -Christian feelings by accusing Moscow for each incident.
The investigations found that the IKEA fire has connections with the Russian military intelligence services through a chain of over 20 intermediaries, announced Arturas Urbelis, from the Lithuanian Attorney General's Office. “The chain includes the organizers, then several organizers for certain objectives, then several intermediaries, all to the perpetrators. It is a system in several stages, very complex,” Urbelis told reporters.
The fire, which was triggered by a detonator timed in the early hours of May 9, was quickly liquidated, urbelis added. Two Ukrainian citizens, one under 20, the other under 18 at the time, received 10,000 euros and a used BMW vehicle for their efforts and made numerous trips from Poland to Vilnius to research and prepare, said the representative of the Lithuanian prosecutor's office.
One of them was later detained in Lithuania, the other in Poland and both will be tried in the respective countries, he announced.
