By Kontur and AFP | 2025-01-17

WARSAW -- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia had planned acts of "air terror" against airlines worldwide, accusing Moscow of staging sabotage and diversion on Polish soil and beyond.

He made the declaration on Wednesday (January 15) while hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks in Warsaw.

European Union (EU) and NATO member Poland has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies since Russia launched a war against Kyiv in February 2022.

"Poland plays a key role in Europe in countering the acts of sabotage and diversion that Russia is organizing, and not just on Polish territory," Tusk told reporters.

"Russia had planned acts of air terror, and not only against Poland, but against airlines all over the world," he added.

In November, Lithuania arrested "a few" suspects as part of a criminal probe into incendiary devices sent on Western-bound planes.

According to Polish and Lithuanian media, the devices, including electric massagers implanted with a flammable substance, were sent from Lithuania to Britain in July and could be behind a truck fire outside Warsaw.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda's chief security adviser blamed Moscow for the incidents.

"We know who the source of these operations is. It is Russian military intelligence," Kestutis Budrys told Ziniu radio November 5.

"We cannot let this go unanswered as it will only escalate into the new kinds of actions," Budrys added.

UK anti-terrorism police in October said they were investigating how a parcel burst into flames at a depot earlier that year, after a similar case in Germany blamed on Russia.

'Speed up' Ukraine's EU accession

Tusk also pledged that Poland, which holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, will speed up Ukraine's process to join the bloc.

"The Polish presidency will break the impasse that has been evident in recent months," Tusk said.

Zelenskyy told reporters that "the sooner Ukraine is in the EU, the sooner Ukraine becomes a member of NATO... the sooner the whole of Europe will get the geopolitical certainty it needs."

Polish President Andrzej Duda, who also met with Zelenskyy on Wednesday, reiterated that Ukraine must be present at the table during any eventual peace talks.

"There can be no talks regarding Ukraine, the war's end, Ukraine's independence and sovereignty, without Ukraine's participation," Duda told reporters.