Poland Charges Teen With 47 Sabotage Acts for Russia

An 18-year-old Ukrainian man is at the center of one of Poland's biggest recent sabotage cases, accused of working for Russian intelligence to inflame Polish-Ukrainian tensions. Prosecutors say the suspect, identified as Illia K, carried out 47 criminal acts between late 2024 and August 2025, mostly vandalism targeting sensitive World War II-era memorials, the BBC reports. Authorities allege he defaced monuments to Polish victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army with UPA-glorifying symbols and slogans. Between 1943 and 1945, the UPA massacred tens of thousands of Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine.

The teen also allegedly vandalized the Monument to the Jewish Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto. Poland's Internal Security Agency says the goal was to stir ethnic and historical grievances that already strain relations between Warsaw and Kyiv. Investigators say Illia K acted for money, but the vandalism was "for the benefit of foreign intelligence." He allegedly received tasks over a messaging app and paid people recruited to take part in the acts with cryptocurrency linked to Russia and China. He's also charged with planning to fly a drone over President Karol Nawrocki's vehicle during last year's Armed Forces Day parade. He was arrested three days before the event and could face life in prison.

The UPA, seeking Ukrainian independence, fought both the Soviets and Nazi Germany, the AP reports. Last month, Poland stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the nation's highest honor, awarded to him in 2023, after he approved naming a military unit "Heroes of the UPA."

• Poland and Ukraine have very different views of the UPA, Wojciech Kononczuk, director of Warsaw's Office for Eastern Studies, tells the BBC. "For Ukrainians they are heroes because they fought the Soviets. Many years after the Second World War, the UPA were fighting the Soviet occupation, so Ukrainians only want to remember that part of the history of the formation after 1945. So they don't know, or don't want to know what were the UPA activities before 1945," he says. "For Poles, the UPA were a criminal structure which was responsible for the mass killing of the Polish population."