Russian professional hockey player arrested on suspicion of spying for Moscow

A spy on ice? A Russian hockey player, suspected of spying for Russia, was arrested on June 11 in Poland, where he was playing in the national championship, the Polish government announced on Friday June 30. “The man who is detained is a professional sportsman from a first division hockey club”adds Warsaw, without specifying the name of the offending man or that of his team.

The hockey player had been residing in Poland since 2021. “On the territory of Poland, he carried out foreign intelligence tasks, including the identification of sensitive infrastructure in several voivodships [districts administratifs]“adds the government.

According to the National Prosecutor’s Office, this is the 14th person arrested as part of an investigation into a “spy network collaborating with Russian special services”. The government assures that the spies were, among other things, responsible for “monitoring of railway routes” and of “propaganda against NATO, Poland and the policy of the Polish government”.

Moscow demands “an immediate explanation”

Russia expressed its “strong protest” to these arrests. “We demand that an immediate and full explanation be provided”, said the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova. The Russian Embassy in Poland has announced that it has “sent a note to the Polish Foreign Ministry asking him (…) to inform him of the charges against” the arrested hockey player.

Asked about the subject on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lamented “very, very difficult work” of the Russian diplomatic mission in Warsaw, “due to the Russophobic position” Polish authorities.