Poland has been shaken by a series of unprecedented acts of sabotage on the key Warsaw-Lublin railway line. The blown-up tracks and a steel clamp fastened to the rails nearly caused a train disaster. What inspires fear is not only the attacks themselves but also the reaction of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government and the services subordinate to him. The informational chaos attempts to downplay the threat, and ultimately the shocking helplessness in the face of the fact that the perpetrators – pro-Russian saboteurs – freely entered Poland, carried out their task, and escaped, paint the picture of a state unable to defend either its citizens or its strategic infrastructure.
The events of the weekend of 15-16 November – though initially presented as a harmless incident or a youthful prank – turned out to be part of a coordinated operation targeting the foundations of Poland’s security, and one of a strictly terrorist nature. Only after more than a day of media pressure (on Monday morning, 17 November), did Prime Minister Donald Tusk admit that “unfortunately, the worst suspicions have been confirmed. On the Warsaw-Lublin route (the village of Mika) there was an act of sabotage.”
Yet this belated confrontation with the facts by the head of government cannot “cover up” the series of failures that led to this embarrassment. Opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński, referring to Tusk’s statements, pointed out that “any chance of stopping those who fled Poland after carrying out the operation was squandered.” It is difficult to disagree: the sluggishness of the services and their initial dismissal of the reports of an explosion created comfortable conditions for the saboteurs to escape.
How TV Republika Broke the Pact of Silence
On the morning of Sunday, 16 November 2025, on railway line No. 7 connecting Warsaw to Dorohusk, a tragedy may have been avoided only thanks to the quick reaction of the engine driver of a Koleje Mazowieckie regional train running between Warszawa Zachodnia and Dęblin. Near the town of Życzyn, close to the PKP Mika station in Garwolin County, he noticed a one-meter-long gap in the tracks at the very last moment. Services were immediately dispatched to the site and evacuated passengers and train staff. Initial inspections, as reported by the Mazovian police, confirmed damage to a section of the track (two rails).
But what most media initially presented merely as “irregularities in the infrastructure” alarmed some local officials and journalists at TV Republika. It was this station that first reported that the matter had a second, far more dangerous layer. According to their information, already on Saturday evening, 15 November, after 9 p.m., the police had received a report of a loud explosion in the same area. Unfortunately, officers limited themselves only to arriving at the reported location (even though witnesses heard the explosion, and the blast – as later turned out – was captured by CCTV!). Now, we know that only incredible luck saved passengers on trains passing along those tracks on Saturday evening. An explosive device had been installed on the rails and detonated at 08:58 p.m. Donald Tusk later stated that it was “a military-grade explosive, C4,” meaning it was likely a powerful plastic explosive whose main component was RDX (about 91 percent). Its detonation required a trigger signal from a detonator, which explains why an electrical cable leading to a nearby parking lot was found.
Returning to Sunday, 16 November: while the government and its subordinate services kept silent, TV Republika broadcast live from the scene, reaching key witnesses and local officials. On its airwaves, the Garwolin County governor, Iwona Kurowska – present at the site – became the first representative of public authority to call things by their name. “The services have no doubt about it: an act of sabotage occurred, an act of subversion. There was an explosion, a bang, an explosive material,” she stated firmly.
It soon turned out that the incident in Garwolin County was not an isolated one. That same day, Sunday evening, another dangerous event occurred on the same railway line. Between the stations Puławy Azoty and Puławy Chemia, an Intercity train traveling from Świnoujście to Rzeszów with 475 passengers aboard was forced to make an emergency stop. Inspections conducted on Sunday evening showed that saboteurs had damaged the overhead power network above the track, which caused windows of one of the Intercity carriages to shatter. Several hundred meters further on, they had installed a steel clamp on the track, presumably intended to derail the train (a phone with a power bank taped beside it was likely meant to record the disaster or monitor the sabotage operation). The clamp had been cut through earlier by passing trains. Two attacks in close proximity – on the same strategically important line, on the same day – were certainly no coincidence.
While pro-government media remained silent, apparently waiting for an official line from the prime minister’s office, only journalists from the Strefa Wolnego Słowa reported the real threat to the public. Tomasz Sakiewicz summed it up: “If it weren’t for TV Republika, the public might never have learned about it.” Under the pressure from Poland’s largest television station, the Tusk government could no longer pretend nothing had happened. However, the way it attempted to manage the informational crisis turned out to be another embarrassment.
A Festival of Lies and Contradictory Statements
In the face of a real terrorist threat, the state’s duty should be – one might think – to immediately and reliably inform citizens about what has happened and what may happen. Donald Tusk’s government not only failed to meet this obligation but deliberately deepened the chaos, serving Poles a festival of contradictory statements, half-truths, and outright lies.
The first official communiqué appeared only on Sunday after 4 p.m., when Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Gałecka wrote: “The police and prosecutor’s office are investigating the matter. At this moment, there are no grounds to speak of deliberate actions by third parties. We appeal for caution.” In light of the evidence already available – reports of an explosion, the electrical cable found on site, and the words of Governor Kurowska – this was a blatant attempt to distort reality.
Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski added: “It could be sabotage, but it could also be theft. People sometimes cut out parts of tracks, act deliberately, and sometimes it’s just foolishness, some bet or challenge.”
But the real informational chaos erupted an hour later. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, seemingly concerned about the widening gap between official statements and alarming media reports, wrote on X that it was “not excluded that we are dealing with an act of sabotage.” In one moment, Poles received two entirely contradictory signals from top state officials. Former digitalization minister Janusz Cieszyński commented on TV Republika: “At 4 p.m., the Interior Ministry spokeswoman says ‘don’t speculate,’ and after 5 p.m. Donald Tusk appears and what does he do? He speculates. This is simply utter bungling.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk, asked on Polsat News about the damaged tracks on the Warsaw-Dęblin route, noted that Poland had been experiencing various forms of sabotage for some time. He nevertheless appealed that… Russia should not be blamed for every such act. “Because Russia is not so powerful that every arson, every such incident is provoked by Russia,” he said.
Instead of clarifying matters, the government propaganda machine launched an attack on the person who first dared to speak the truth – Governor Iwona Kurowska. The spokesman for the minister coordinating special services, Jacek Dobrzyński, scandalously accused her of “bragging” about alleged information from the Internal Security Agency (ABW). “I firmly state that no one from ABW contacted the Garwolin governor or provided any information,” Dobrzyński thundered.
Governor Kurowska’s response was immediate. Speaking with journalist Michał Rachoń, she flatly called Dobrzyński’s post a lie. She explained that she had never claimed ABW had contacted her and that her information about sabotage came from local services present at the scene. “Mr. Jacek Dobrzyński is lying, and I ask for a correction or publication of my response; I have not received either so far. I doubt he will apologize or correct it,” she said bitterly. She also added – exposing the special-services spokesman’s incompetence – that the actions on site were conducted by the Central Bureau of Police Investigation (CBŚP), not by ABW.
Faces of the Sabotage
We now know that the perpetrators were not, as initially suggested, random vandals or authors of a “stupid prank.” The attacks on Poland’s railway were carried out by professional saboteurs acting on behalf of Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU.
On 19 November, at a press conference, prosecutors officially announced charges against two Ukrainian citizens: Oleksandr K. (born 1986) and Yevheniy I. (born 1984). Investigators emphasized that the men had committed “acts of sabotage of a terrorist nature on behalf of Russian intelligence against Poland.” According to findings, the sabotage was not only recorded by the perpetrators but also transmitted.
Although prosecutors used initials, the identity of one of the key perpetrators was first revealed by Niezależna.pl. It concerned Yevheniy Ivanov, born in 1984 in the Kharkiv region. Ivanov is not an anonymous mercenary. He had long been on the radar of Ukrainian services and had been recruited by GRU officer Yuriy Syzov. Most compromising for the Polish authorities, Ivanov had been convicted in absentia by a court in Lviv for acts of sabotage in Ukraine months before the Polish attack.
Ukrainian media, such as the portal Sudovyi Reporter, had already detailed his sabotage activities back in July 2024. They reported that Ivanov coordinated, on GRU’s orders, an attempted bombing of the NWP Athlon Avia drone-manufacturing plant in Lviv. He recruited a former employee of the plant, who was promised USD 40,000 for planting explosive charges. Fortunately, the entire operation was under the counterintelligence control of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), which disabled the bombs and, after a staged explosion, exposed the Russian masterminds. Although Ivanov was at that time already in Russia, he was charged with, among other offenses, treason and sabotage.
As mentioned, Ivanov’s handler in Ukraine was the Russian military intelligence officer Yuriy Syzov. Ukrainian government websites include an indictment against him. He was charged with terrorism, sabotage, leading a criminal group, and illegal border crossing. His official position: senior specialist in the special operations department of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The Ukrainian indictment states that Syzov’s duties, as a representative of Russia’s special services, included conducting intelligence-sabotage activities against Ukraine. He recruited Ukrainian citizens for covert cooperation with the intention of using them for actions harmful to Ukraine.
Syzov recruited Ivanov, who also searched for and built an agent network from among residents of Ukrainian territory. Ivanov transferred money received from Syzov to Ukraine for those directly carrying out tasks and also provided transport of materials and tools needed for acts of sabotage. It is known that in April 2024, Syzov planned terrorist attacks in Kyiv. He involved (again) Ivanov, then Borysenko (who cooperated with the services), and Dmytro Bilokon. The targets were explosions at Leroy Merlin shopping centers in Kyiv and near the Ofenziva café. Syzov arranged for Borysenko (via an unwitting courier) to receive 15 explosive devices hidden in tea packages. The explosion was to occur on 10 May 2024 at 4:00 a.m., but the operation was thwarted the day before when Bilokon was detained at the planned attack site. “The crime was not completed for reasons beyond the perpetrator’s (Syzov’s) control,” the indictment states.
A Border Open to Terrorists
During his statement in the Sejm, Prime Minister Donald Tusk himself presented evidence of the services’ complete helplessness. He admitted that the perpetrators “after carrying out the act of sabotage in Mika, left Polish territory through the Terespol border crossing. Immediately after conducting this attack, when they had not yet been identified by the services.”
Particularly shocking is the fact that the saboteurs entered and left Poland through the Terespol crossing. Recall: during the night of 11-12 September 2025 it had been closed for security reasons due to a Russian drone incursion into Poland and the Zapad 2025 military exercises. Yet just two weeks later, on the night of 24-25 September, the Tusk government – despite no indication whatsoever that Belarus had retreated even slightly from its hostile anti-Polish policy – made the inexplicable decision to reopen it.
Naturally, this raises a fundamental question: how is it possible that a man convicted of sabotage in Ukraine could cross the Polish border without issue? The answer is as simple as it is embarrassing: Polish services did absolutely nothing to verify him. As journalist Katarzyna Gójska revealed on TV Republika, “Ukraine has an IT system in which one can easily, literally within minutes, verify whether an individual like the one convicted in Lviv (…) appears in Ukrainian records.” One phone call to Kyiv and a request to check the database would have been enough to learn that the Ukrainian citizen entering Poland from Belarus was a potential bomber. No one made that call. The Polish state proved blind and deaf, and its passivity created ideal conditions for the attack.
The problem of Poland opening itself to penetration by Russian intelligence is, unfortunately, much broader. For months, an astonishing practice has been flourishing: daily (!) bus routes from Polish cities to territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia. One can, without any hindrance, buy a ticket and travel, for example, from Warsaw West bus station to Donetsk or to the razed city of Mariupol. Transport companies – with names such as CrimeaBus and DonbassTrans – advertise their services online without restrictions. The ticket price is about 250-300 euros. The route to Mariupol? For example, via Lithuania, Latvia/Estonia, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don. On the CrimeaBus website, there is even an intriguing note: “Ukrainian citizens travel to the territory occupied by Minsk in Belarus. Departure from Minsk airport to Moscow, Sheremetyevo Airport. At Sheremetyevo Airport, Ukrainian citizens undergo inspection by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). They can then continue their journey by company minibus to the chosen city in the occupied territory of Ukraine.”