{"id":6280,"date":"2023-08-04T20:20:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T15:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2023-08-04T20:20:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T15:20:48","slug":"poland-detains-belarusian-suspected-of-spying-for-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/news\/poland-detains-belarusian-suspected-of-spying-for-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland detains Belarusian suspected of spying for Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Poland on Friday said it had detained a Belarusian man on suspicion of being part of a &#8220;Russian spy ring&#8221; which it claimed planned to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poland, a key ally of Ukraine, had previously reported arrests in the investigation, including that of a Russian ice hockey player in June who was also held on espionage charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Belarusian Mikhail A. took part in reconnaissance of military facilities and ports. He also carried out propaganda activities for Russia,&#8221; Kaminski said on Twitter, recently rebranded as X, adding the man was the sixteenth person held in connection with the alleged spy network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Polish government said Friday that the Belarusian came to Poland in 2021 and &#8220;maintained contacts with citizens of the Russian Federation, with whom he was meeting in Saint Petersburg and Crimea.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The man often changed the means of communication and was destroying traces of his criminal activities,&#8221; the statement said, adding that the 39-year-old pleaded &#8220;partly guilty&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also said the alleged spy ring&#8217;s actions included &#8220;preparations for derailing trains carrying aid to Ukraine&#8221; as well as &#8220;inciting sentiments against the Ukrainian nation or providing aid to Ukraine by Poland.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poland, a NATO member, has recently raised fresh concerns about possible provocations coming from neighbouring Belarus, which now hosts Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this week Warsaw announced two Belarusian military helicopters had violated Polish airspace, which prompted Poland&#8217;s decision to reinforce its eastern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a statement published Friday, the Polish foreign ministry called on Minsk &#8220;to urgently clarify the incident&#8230; and to stop all provocations along the Polish-Belarusian border&#8221;.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poland on Friday said it had detained a Belarusian man on suspicion of being part of a &#8220;Russian spy ring&#8221; which it claimed planned to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine. Poland, a key ally of Ukraine, had previously reported arrests in the investigation, including that of a Russian ice hockey player in June who [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2,2621,2622],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-russia","category-russia-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}