Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament on Tuesday that authorities have identified two Ukrainian men, acting on behalf of Russian intelligence, as responsible for sabotage on the country's railway system.
"Saboteurs recently damaged at least two segments of a Polish railway on a route to Ukraine," the US think tank said in its latest assessment.
Polish police said a train conductor reported damage to a section of the Warsaw-Lublin line near the village of Życzyn on Sunday morning.
Tusk said on Monday that an explosion from an act of sabotage destroyed part of the Warsaw-Lublin line near Mika Station, about 100 kilometres southeast of the Polish capital.
The ISW said investigative journalist Christo Grozev published images of a damaged track near Warsaw and "an electrical cable laid across the track on the route to Rzeszów," a key logistics hub for Western military aid to Ukraine.
"Grozev assessed that the cable was 300 metres long and led to a nearby parking lot, allowing a saboteur to remotely detonate an explosive device," according to the ISW.
Image: X/ISW
The ISW noted that while it remains unclear whether the incident on the Warsaw-Rzeszów line is linked to the damage on the Warsaw-Lublin route, both lines support deliveries of Western military assistance to Ukraine.
The think tank said the attacks come amid what it described as Russia’s intensifying "Phase Zero" campaign aimed at destabilizing Europe, undermining NATO cohesion and setting "the political, informational, and psychological conditions" for a potential future Russian war against the alliance.
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Source: IAR, PAP, understandingwar.org