Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that authorities have detained a Russian national suspected of plotting to kill an American citizen of Ukrainian origin in Warsaw. The suspect was taken into custody on August 7, Tusk said on Thursday, without revealing specific details about the alleged plan or the intended target’s identity.
Tusk described the would-be victim as someone considered “inconvenient to the Putin regime.” He said the arrest marked the first known case of a person acting on Russia’s orders attempting to strike a US citizen on the territory of another NATO member state, calling the development a “very dangerous signal.” He thanked Poland’s Internal Security Agency and police, saying the attack was prevented “at the last minute.”
The disclosure comes amid growing unease across Europe over Russian threats and a pattern of killings of Kremlin critics abroad, reportedly carried out through contract killers and poisonings. Last week, Poland and several Baltic nations bordering Russia said they were monitoring Moscow’s moves and had increased security around critical infrastructure.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and President Vladimir Putin has blamed NATO’s eastward expansion for the conflict. The alliance has provided political and military support to Ukraine, insisting on its right to self-defense. In recent months, European countries have voiced increasing alarm over Russian military aircraft repeatedly approaching NATO airspace.
Earlier this month, German authorities reported finding a quadcopter drone packed with explosives near an airport, describing the discovery as a “new level of danger,” though no culprit was officially named. US intelligence reportedly suggested Moscow may have been operating the drone. Separately, Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas alleged that Russia was preparing “false flag” attacks on regional infrastructure using captured Ukrainian drones to frame Kyiv.
Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister overseeing security services, said in a post on X that the arrest was carried out in cooperation with US authorities. In recent years, several European nations, including France, Lithuania, and Germany, have dismantled networks suspected of targeting Russian dissidents and individuals linked to Ukraine’s war effort. Russia, meanwhile, has accused Ukraine of carrying out killings tied to the conflict, including an explosion that killed a Russian military officer in annexed Crimea on Thursday.