Poland says Russian secret service behind 2024 fire in Warsaw shopping centre

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WARSAW (Reuters) -Russian secret services were behind a massive fire that nearly completely destroyed a Warsaw shopping centre in May 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday after a year of investigation into the case.

“We already know for sure that the large fire on Marywilska was the result of arson ordered by Russian services. The actions were coordinated by a person staying in Russia. Some of the perpetrators are already in custody, the rest have been identified and are being sought,” Tusk said on X.

Poland has been a target of sabotage actions, which officials said have been part of a “hybrid war” being waged by Russia to destabilize the functioning of countries that support Ukraine in the war with Russia, involving tactics like arson and cyberattacks.

Polish investigators are cooperating with authorities in Lithuania, where some of the perpetrators also carried out sabotage activities, Justice Minister Adam Bodnar and Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said in a separate statement.

“We have in-depth knowledge of the order and course of the arson and the way in which the perpetrators documented it. Their actions were organized and directed by an identified person staying in the Russian Federation,” they said.

“The Polish authorities are determined to hold accountable the perpetrators of the heinous acts of sabotage and those who directed them.”

In March, Lithuanian prosecutors accused Russia’s military intelligence of orchestrating an arson attack on an IKEA store in Vilnius, which broke out three days before the shopping centre fire in neighboring Poland.

Russia has denied involvement in the arson attacks.

(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Ros Russell and Nia Williams)