Description: Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, stated that the two acts of sabotage on the Polish railway system last week were conducted by Russian intelligence services. Tusk cited investigative reports and claimed that the two individuals involved in blowing up the railway connecting Warsaw and Lublin, which is also a crucial railway line in supplying Ukraine with key assistance, were of Ukrainian descent and they fled towards Belarus. In one of the incidents the individuals used military grade C – 4 explosives as their ultimate task was to cause a major accident, sow fear and incite anti – Ukrainian sentiment, according to Prime Minister Tusk. Russia has denounced all accusations and blamed Poland for incentivizing Russophobia as Russia was always the usual suspect when these kind of incidents were in question. Tusk additionally stated that he ordered the security services in the country to ramp up security across strategic sites and critical infrastructure in order to avoid future attempts of sabotage.
Impact: NATO countries on the eastern flank, bordering Russia continuously come under severe hybrid attacks and fail to prevent these types of attacks as the levels of preparedness within the security services continuously lags behind the wartime conditions imposed by the situation in the region. The attack follows the aerial incursions by Russia two months ago, where NATO’s lack of air defenses and countermeasures were evidently demonstrated. Russia’s continuous probing into the defenses of countries in the proximity of its orbit of interest is far from justifying the grounds for a potential expanded invasion, however, the Kremlin continuously pinpoints and identifies potential weak points in NATO’s collective defense. Poland as one of the most important defensive pillars of the Alliance should be expected to undertake severe measures of increasing its defensive capabilities in terms of countering hybrid attacks and increasing security measures across critical infrastructure. Russia would most definitely continue to test NATO’s defenses and conduct a wide variety of hybrid attacks with the maximum level of plausible deniability while also garnering valuable intelligence and disrupting key supply lines to Ukraine’s military. The incident highlights the concerning level of porousness across NATO’s collective system of defense as it’s in a dire need of drastic reforms in terms of increasing counter insurgent capabilities, increasing its border security and aerial defenses.