Vladimir Putin has “immense” possibilities and resources to carry out campaigns of terror across Europe and the US, a former head of Poland’s Foreign Intelligence Agency told the Express. He also described the Kremlin tyrant as being like Hannibal Lecter – “crazy to the core”, but also “effective and rational in doing tactical things”.
Poland and its allies were left shocked after a bomb exploded on a railway line between Warsaw and Lublin at the weekend. The route is used to deliver critical military aid to Ukraine and has never been attacked before. Poland’s government has identified two Ukrainians with long standing connections to Russian intelligence as the main suspects behind the blast.
Piotr Krawczyk told the Express that it was almost certain that the Russians were behind the sabotage act, pointing out a number of tell-tale clues.
He was a colonel in the Polish intelligence service and headed the agency between 2016 and 2022.
“It was the work of one of the Russian intelligence agencies. Of course, the most probable is GRU (military intelligence),” he said.
“The explosive material that was used was relatively small. It was big enough to damage the rail, but not to do so in a way that would derail the trains. It was a cumulative explosion with a one way force. So the person who did it was very professional.
“The material was connected with the mobile phone through some kind of wires. So a very typical IED that we discovered almost daily in Afghanistan. And by the way, in Afghanistan, the Russian GRU was supporting the Taliban in building these IEDS.”
Poland’s Prime Minister claimed the attack was meant to sow panic and stir up anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Polish society.
However, Mr Krawczyk believes the wider context needs to be considered and that Putin actually wanted to send a clear message to Donald Trump following the White House’s decision to impose new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies- Lukoil and Rosneft.
“I believe that this act of sabotage, this act of terrorism, is not directed toward Poland,” he explained. “It is directed toward the US. So I strongly believe that Russians want to signal that they are ready to escalate just like the Americans did.
“In the last couple of weeks the US showed Russia that if they are not ready for negotiations, if they are not ready for some kind of compromise, then America can be fully engaged in countering Russian interests all over the globe. And now the Russians said ‘OK, now look, this is what we can do. We can also escalate.'”
The former intelligence head dismissed the idea that Russia would invade a NATO country as part of its escalation, saying it would resort to terror and sabotage as its main weapons of choice.
“The acts of terror and sabotage that they can stage are immense,” he warned. “They have all the resources to go after critical infrastructure in countries like the Baltic states, Poland, Romania and so forth.
“They can pick plenty of different targets. It can be one of the planes or trains carrying hundreds of passengers. It can be one of our refineries, one of the power stations.
“The Russians can support one of the terrorist organisations that can go after US citizens. There are still plenty of terrorist organisations all over the globe that the Russians can finance, support, and train.”
