Russian spies in Polish court. Shocking backstage and a bomb in the package

On Tuesday, the trial of two Russian citizens accused of espionage – Igor R. and his wife Irina R. – began before the District Court in Sosnowiec. The case is being held in public.

The defendants are responsible for participating in the activities of Russian intelligence and transmitting messages that could have harmed Poland. Igor R. was also accused of sending a parcel with a cumulative bomb.

Igor R., dressed in a red prison uniform, was first brought to the courtroom. He held in his hands a piece of paper with intersecting symbols and the words: “Russia”, “Putin” and “Ch… war”. He wrote the latter word in Cyrillic, with the symbol of pacifa in the letter “o”. A moment later, the police brought his wife in.

Journalists cannot participate in the trial because at the December organizational meeting, the court closed it to the public at the request of the prosecutor's office. Information about the formal start of the trial was provided to PAP by attorney Marta Smołka, who defends Igor M.

Even before the hearing, attorney Smołka told journalists that she wanted the trial to take place with the participation of the media. The court decided to exclude the public a few weeks ago at the request of the prosecutor's office. She added that on the Internet you can find articles about this process, at various levels of detail. – Since there is a lot of information (information – PAP) circulating in the public space about this process, the exclusion of transparency is half-hearted, a bit pro forma – she argued. She explained that due to the fact that the information was not disclosed, she could not provide any information.

Proc. Krzysztof Kuk from the Silesian department of the National Prosecutor's Office told journalists that the request to exclude disclosure was motivated by state security issues. He did not want to talk about the charges or provide other information, referring him to the spokesman of the prosecutor's office or the head of the PK department. He only said that the defendants could face up to 15 years in prison.

Serious allegations against Russian spies

The R. couple were detained in July 2024, and both have been in custody since then. The investigation against them was conducted by the Silesian department of the National Prosecutor's Office and the Katowice branch of the Internal Security Agency. The indictment was sent to court in October 2025.

According to the findings of the investigation, Igor R. cooperated against Poland with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) from February 2022 to August 2022 – among others. collected and transmitted information about Russian opposition activists residing in Poland, as well as people and institutions providing them with help.

According to PK, Igor R. passed the collected data to his wife Irina R. on an encrypted electronic storage medium for further transmission to the FSB, already in Russia. Irina R. was to take steps in Russia to transfer encrypted data to the FSB, including: sent the parcel using a parcel locker and attempted to contact the officers of this service.

PK also accused Igor R. of acting in July 2024 with two Ukrainian citizens and a Russian citizen, participated in sending and ordering the collection of a parcel with explosive material transported by a courier company. It contained devices and explosives in the form of nitroglycerin. The parcel was found in a courier company's warehouse in the province. Łódź.

As described by PK, according to the opinion of an expert from the Forensic Research Bureau of the Internal Security Agency, the disclosed shipment contained, among others, a strong explosive, Soviet-made electric combat detonators, a crafted power bank serving as an initiating device, a metal thermos with a cumulative insert and a bag with powdered aluminum. The entire package – as the prosecutor's office pointed out – constituted the so-called a cumulative bomb, and its explosion could have caused significant damage to the infrastructure.

In connection with sending this parcel, Igor R. was accused of causing a direct danger of an event threatening the life or health of many people or property on a large scale in the form of an explosion of explosives. The shipment of nitroglycerin was sent by Ukrainian citizen Kristina S., against whom the District Court in Piotrów Trybunalski issued a conviction in August 2025. (PAP)

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