Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a press conference on Thursday that the authorities had managed to prevent the attack "at the last moment". Tusk described the intended victim as "inconvenient for the Putin regime".
This is the first time that someone, on the orders of Russia, has decided to carry out an attack against an American citizen on the territory of another NATO country, he says.
The Russian suspect was detained in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on August 7. The police operation was carried out in cooperation with American authorities.
We must accept the assumption that the Putin regime will try to eliminate people who are inconvenient for various reasons, says Tusk, noting that Poland will likely “fall under similar pressure again.”
The EU and NATO member Poland has repeatedly accused Russia of being behind various forms of sabotage and attacks in the country since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
For example, Russian artist and satirist Semyon Skrepetsky, whose real name was Robert Kuzovov, was shot dead in eastern Poland in June. Tusk described the act as a “political murder.”
