The saboteurs who carried out the attack on Poland’s railway system entered the country from Belarus through a crossing that the current authorities had closed after drone incursions — and later reopened despite warnings. But that is not all: one of the perpetrators had previously been convicted for pro-Russian sabotage, yet still managed to enter Poland without any difficulty from a country cooperating with Putin’s regime.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk today presented parliament with information regarding the sabotage on the Warsaw–Lublin railway line. The briefing was prepared by the Prosecutor General in coordination with the intelligence services and police leadership under the law governing the prosecutor’s office.
The acts of sabotage took place at different times. The first involved mounting a steel clamp onto the track, likely intended to derail a train. The incident was to be recorded by a mobile phone with a power bank placed near the tracks. That attempt failed. The second incident occurred on Saturday, November 15 at 8:58 p.m. It was captured by surveillance cameras. A military-grade C4 explosive was detonated using an initiating device connected to a 300-meter electrical cable. The charge exploded as a freight train traveling from Warsaw to Puławy passed over it. The train driver did not even notice the explosion as he passed the site.
The saboteurs escaped through a crossing reopened by the Polish authorities
Tusk said that the Polish services and the prosecutor’s office have complete data on the saboteurs, including recorded images of them. After committing the sabotage, the individuals left Poland through the Terespol border crossing. Because this occurred immediately after the attack, they had not yet been identified by the authorities. They are two Ukrainian nationals, one from Donbas, cooperating with Russian intelligence services.
Two aspects of the case deserve particular attention. First, the issue of the Terespol crossing — a crossing that had been closed on the Polish side and was reopened by the authorities less than two months ago.
During the night of September 11–12, 2025, the Terespol border crossing was closed on the Polish side, initially until further notice, for reasons of national security following the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones and the Zapad 2025 military exercises. But during the night of September 24–25, 2025, the crossing was reopened by the Polish government. And it was precisely through this crossing that the pro-Russian saboteurs entered.
Second, one of the suspects is a Ukrainian citizen who had been convicted by a court in Lviv in May for acts of sabotage. Despite this, he was not checked by the Polish services at the border, entered Poland, and nearly caused a major railway disaster.
This raises the question: How do Polish services verify the identity of individuals entering Poland from Belarus — a country allied with Putin’s Russia? If a convicted saboteur can freely enter Poland, it understandably raises serious concerns.