When the fire broke out at the IKEA store in Vilnius earlier this month, few details were initially known. It was only this week that the Lithuanian media confirmed it was not a simple arson attack. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk informed journalists on Monday evening that the series of arson attacks in both Poland and Lithuania were acts of sabotage orchestrated by Russia.
Poland is currently reviving a commission to investigate Russian influence. According to Tusk, nine suspects have been arrested and charged with direct involvement in acts of sabotage in Poland on behalf of Russian services, including beatings, arson, and attempted arson. These suspects, hired for these acts, are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish citizens, and they operated in several countries.
Tusk highlighted an attempt to set fire to a paint factory in Wroclaw, Poland, and a fire in the IKEA warehouse in Lithuania on May 9 as examples of these sabotage acts. Regimantas Čiupaila, former Lithuanian interior minister, stated that the consequences of the Vilnius fire were not serious and were quickly contained.
“Apparently, it was not an operation on the same scale as the one planned in Wroclaw. But it was also prevented there. I think the Lithuanian authorities will collaborate with their Polish counterparts to determine if this is an isolated group or a systemic issue,” he said.
Gediminas Grina, former head of the State Security Department, did not shy away from describing the Vilnius incident as sabotage or diversion linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Given the ongoing war, the adversary is taking easy actions. This is either sabotage or diversion. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened,” he believes.
Marcin Samsel, an expert on security and crisis management in Poland, suggested that the Polish authorities are partly to blame for allowing the attacks to occur.
“The previous government shut down many units of the Internal Security Agency and reduced the number of officers. Experienced intelligence officers who could have developed an appropriate strategy were dismissed. The then government did not fully grasp the scale of the threat. We are now in Cold War 2.0, and the conflict with Russia is ongoing,” he says.
Samsel warns that not all of Russia’s actions have been detected.
“Initially, it seemed that the Kremlin services were uncertain about their next steps at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. However, after two years of war, we see that the Russians have organized themselves and moved on to the next phase of hybrid warfare – destabilizing actions in various parts of Europe,” Samsel believes.
He emphasizes that cyber-attacks remain a significant threat, and more explosions, traffic disruptions, aggressive demonstrations, terrorist attacks, and incidents such as hazardous material spills and arson are to be expected.
Grina notes that the police have limited capacity to respond to such acts of sabotage.
“This is not a war between criminals; it is a war between states. Counter-intelligence and policing are different. Surveillance of suspicious activities does not violate rights, but it is more challenging for the police to do this without a basis for surveillance. It is not the police’s role to fight states,” Grina points out.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian law enforcement has been cautious in commenting on this information and has urged against making unsubstantiated links.
So far, it has been politicians like Tusk and earlier Gitanas Nausėda who have spoken out about Russia’s activities in Europe. Artūras Urbelis, chief prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, stated that it is still too early to confirm if the criminal acts were initiated by a hostile state.
Investigations are in the early stages, and until all data is assessed and information verified, it is not possible to confirm or deny these circumstances.
“Until the information is verified, we cannot disclose it to avoid undermining pre-trial investigations in foreign countries,” Urbelis said.
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