A man suspected of aiding a plot by Russian intelligence services to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been arrested in Poland, Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors said on Thursday.
The Polish national, named only as Pawel K, is suspected of supplying information to Russian military intelligence and “helping the Russian special forces to plan a possible assassination attempt” against Zelenskiy, a statement from Polish prosecutors said.
It said the suspect had stated that he was “ready to act on behalf of the military intelligence services of the Russian Federation and established contact with Russian citizens directly involved in the war in Ukraine.”
Photo: AFP / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service
Ukrainian prosecutors had informed Poland about the activities, which had enabled them to gather “essential evidence” against the suspect, the statement added.
Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor Andriy Kostin said the suspect had been tasked with “gathering and transmitting to the aggressor state information about security at Rzeszow-Jasionka airport” in southeastern Poland.
Zelenskiy frequently passes through the airport on his trips abroad. It is also used by foreign officials and aid convoys heading to Ukraine.
The suspect is in detention pending judicial procedures, the two nations’ prosecutors said.
“This case underscores the persistent threat Russia poses not only to Ukraine and Ukrainians, but to the entire free world,” Kostin wrote on social media. “The Kremlin’s criminal regime ... organizes and carries out sabotage operations on the territory of other sovereign states.”
Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski commended the work of his nation’s special services and prosecutors in the operation, as well as cooperation with neighboring Ukraine.
Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest backers since the Russian invasion in February 2022, although ties have frayed in a dispute over agricultural imports.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant