FILE PHOTO: Vessels sail along the Moskva River near the Kremlin in central Moscow, Russia, August 7, 2025. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo
WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish prosecutors have charged two Russian citizens with spying for Russian intelligence and one of them for plotting to send a parcel of explosives, prosecutors said on Monday.
European authorities have been on high alert for explosive packages since a series of explosions in courier depots in Britain, Germany and near the Polish capital Warsaw in July 2024. Western officials blamed those incidents on Russia.
Moscow denies such accusations.
One of the Russians, referred to as Igor R. under Polish privacy laws, was charged with participating in a plot to send a parcel bomb via courier, for which a Ukrainian citizen was also charged earlier this year.
"The parcel contained explosive devices and materials in the form of nitroglycerine, as well as hidden military-grade electric detonators and initiating devices... The entire package constituted a so-called shaped charge bomb," prosecutors said.
Igor R. and his wife Irina were also charged with providing Russian intelligence with information on Russian opposition activists residing in Poland, as well as individuals and institutions providing assistance to them.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
