On Thursday, Russia’s foreign espionage head accused the US and Poland of conspiring to acquire a sphere of influence in Ukraine, an allegation Warsaw dismissed as disinformation aimed at instilling doubt among Kyiv’s backers.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Evidence Service (SVR), cited unreleased intelligence claiming that the US and Poland, both NATO allies, were scheming to reclaim Polish control of western Ukraine.
‘Washington and Warsaw are working on measures to create Poland’s tight military and political control over its historical possessions in Ukraine,’ Naryshkin said in a rare statement made by the SVR, citing intelligence gathered by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
Poland refuted the claim, claiming that Moscow was spreading false information.
‘For numerous years, the myths about Poland’s purported plans to attack western Ukraine have been repeated,’ said Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman for Poland’s special services coordinator.
‘Russian propaganda aims to sow discord between Ukraine and Poland in order to sabotage PL-UA collaboration.’
At various points in the past, Poland dominated some of the lands that are now part of Ukraine, most recently between the two world wars. At the end of World War II, Western Ukraine, including the city of Lviv, was integrated into the Soviet Union.
According to the SVR, the US and Poland are contemplating a proposal in which Polish ‘peacekeeping’ soldiers with no NATO mandate would enter portions of western Ukraine where the risk of a clash with Russian forces was low.
The SVR, which took over most of the Soviet-era KGB’s foreign surveillance tasks when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, did not disclose its proof, and Reuters was unable to corroborate the claim.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most steadfast allies in the fight against Russia’s invasion, sending weapons across the border and taking in nearly three million Ukrainian refugees.
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