Polish officials announced on Monday that two Turkish men had been detained in Germany over a fire at a Starlink station in Masovia. Warsaw calls the blaze sabotage committed for Moscow, and the arrests came about a month after the incident.
The fire damaged the station’s power system and backup generator. Polish officials say the attack was meant to disrupt internet services, including those used by Ukraine’s military. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said the pair will face charges in Poland for carrying out sabotage on the orders of a foreign intelligence agency. According to Deutsche Welle, German police made the arrests on behalf of Polish services, but Polish officials did not say where or when in Germany the men were held.
Russian services blamed amid wider EU sabotage concerns
Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told a news conference that he had no doubt Russian services were behind the attack. He added that Russian agencies were increasingly recruiting people tied to organised crime.
The case is one of several incidents that officials across the European Union view as part of a Russian campaign of sabotage and hybrid attacks designed to weaken support for Ukraine. The Russian embassy in Warsaw had not responded immediately to a request for comment. Moscow has previously rejected similar accusations as baseless and driven by anti-Russian hysteria.
Starlink’s role in Ukraine’s battlefield communications
Ukraine’s military depends on tens of thousands of Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and occasional drone operations. Elon Musk, the founder of Starlink, switched on the service over Ukraine in 2022, days after Russia’s full-scale invasion, after Kyiv asked him to. Poland says it pays for Ukraine’s Starlink subscription.
Musk has since clashed with Ukrainian officials over his views on the war. This year he agreed to disable thousands of Russian grey-market terminals in Ukraine, which caused problems for Russian forces. Ukraine is now looking to use those terminals for attacks on Russian territory.
