Poland has detained a Russian woman who was part of a pro-Russian group that sought to whip up tension between Poland and Ukraine and will expel her soon, the national agency for internal security ABW said on May 17.

Four other people involved in what the ABW described as “hybrid” activities against Poland would be banned for five years from entering Poland, the ABW said. ABW identified the Russian woman as “Yekaterina C.”.

Read more here. </s> WARSAW, Poland — Polish authorities have detained a Russian citizen and banned four others from entering Poland for five years on allegations of “information warfare.”

Authorities say they tried to fuel animosity between Poles and Ukrainians and sought to challenge Polish views on history with a Russian narrative.

The move comes amid rising fears that Russia is seeking to destabilize Poland and exacerbate Polish-Ukrainian tensions that would leave Ukraine isolated. Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency, which investigates espionage and terrorism, said Thursday that it had detained a Russian woman identified only as Yekaterina C. and would expel her.

The agency accused the Russians of being engaged in “hybrid” activities, a term used to describe non-military but subversive tactics that Russia is suspected of using to further its interests. </s> WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has detained a Russian woman who was part of a pro-Russian group that sought to whip up tension between Poland and Ukraine and will expel her soon, the national agency for internal security ABW said on Thursday.

Four other people involved in what the ABW described as "hybrid" activities against Poland would be banned for five years from entering Poland, the ABW said. ABW identified the Russian woman as "Yekaterina C.".

It did not elaborate on the identities of the four other people which it said had undertaken "determined attempts to consolidate pro-Russian groups in Poland around two key priorities of Russia's hybrid actions against Poland."

"That is fuelling Polish-Ukrainian animosities in social and political spheres as well as undermining interpretation of Polish history and replacing it with a Russian narration," the ABW said.

There was no immediate comment available from Russia.

Hybrid warfare includes conducting foreign disinformation campaigns, such as spreading fake news, and targeting the public at crucial times such as elections and in diplomatic or other crises.

ABW said its intervention had "neutralized the activity of two network structures taking part in the Russian hybrid and information war carried out against Poland".

Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, views Russia as the biggest threat to its security, especially since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. </s> WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish authorities plan to expel one Russian and banned four others from entering for five years on allegations they had engaged in “information warfare” seeking to fuel animosity between Poles and Ukrainians.

“Their aim is to destabilize the socio-political situation in our country,” Stanislaw Zaryn, the spokesman for the Internal Security Agency, said Thursday.

The announcement came as officials are warning that Russia is seeking to destabilize Poland and exacerbate Polish-Ukrainian tensions in order to weaken Ukraine’s alliances with Western powers.

Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 amid a broader effort to reassert its sway in a region that Moscow had controlled until 1989.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency, which is focused on investigating espionage and terrorism, said it had detained a Russian woman identified only as Yekaterina C. and would expel her. It said she had been in Poland since 2013.

The agency accused her and the four other Russians of “hybrid” activities, a term used to describe non-military but subversive tactics that Russia is suspected of using to further its interests.

Zaryn said the Polish efforts were aimed at “neutralizing the activity of two network structures involved in the Russian hybrid and informational war” against Poland. The security agency said the Russians were pushing interpretations of history that would incite hatred between Ukrainians and Poles.

Zaryn said the Polish investigation was also targeting Polish citizens who had cooperated with the Russians and were funded for taking specific actions “against Poland and in the interests of Russia.”

Poland for many years has been a key supporter of Ukraine’s pro-Western ambitions. However, the neighbors remain deeply divided over how to remember a shared past that includes massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during the German occupation in World War II, but also a longer legacy of Polish colonialism and brutality toward Ukrainians.

Over the past two years, Poland and Ukraine have increasingly been at odds over that history amid a rise of nationalism in both countries. </s> Ukrainian opposition leader and ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was deported to Poland on Monday, the Ukrainian border service said, after he was detained in a Kiev restaurant by law enforcement agents in camouflage, Reuters reported.

Poland’s border service confirmed that he had arrived and that Warsaw had agreed to let him enter.

“This person was on Ukrainian territory illegally and therefore, in compliance with all legal procedures, he was returned to the country from where he arrived,” border service spokesman Oleh Slobodyan said in a post on Facebook.

“This is not a president and not a man. This is a lowlife crook who wants to wreck Ukraine. All this shows how weak they are. We will of necessity defeat them.” </s> KIEV, Ukraine — Opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili was deported from Ukraine to Poland on Monday after being detained by armed, masked men at a restaurant in Kiev and rushed to the airport, Ukrainian officials and his supporters said.

Ukraine's border guard agency had to use force to counter Saakashvili's supporters at the Kiev airport, Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the agency, said on Facebook.

Saakashvili was stripped of Ukrainian citizenship while he was abroad last year, but he forced his way back into the country from Poland in September. Since then, he has led repeated protests against Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the official corruption that still plagues the country.

Poland's border guards said on the agency's website that Saakashvili was admitted to Polish territory Monday at the request of Ukrainian immigration authorities.

He was permitted into Poland as the spouse of a European Union citizen, the Polish guards said. Saakashvili's wife is Dutch, and both the Netherlands and Poland are EU nations.

Upon his arrival in Poland, Saakashvili said his deportation showed Poroshenko's weakness. He denounced the Ukrainian president as a "sneaky speculator who wants to destroy Ukraine" in a Facebook statement.

Saakashvili, Georgia's president from 2004-13, came to Ukraine after his presidency ended as an ally of Poroshenko, who appointed him governor of the southern Odessa region. He resigned from that post in 2016 and harshly criticized Poroshenko for failing to stem corruption.

"I was very nicely met by Polish side, and Ukrainian side was absolutely outrageous, total lawlessness — it was a kidnapping, illegal one. But Poles are very good and I am very grateful," Saakashvili told Polish Radio RMF FM as he left Warsaw Airport. </s> Ukrainian MP Nadiya Savchenko, once hailed as a symbol of resistance against Russia, was detained on Thursday over accusations she plotted a terrorist attack in Kiev, authorities said.

"She was detained after the prosecutor general read out her indictment," the prosecutor's spokesman Andriy Lysenko told AFP by phone hours after lawmakers voted to lift Savchenko's immunity from prosecution.

Savchenko had planned "a large-scale terrorist act in the centre of the Ukrainian capital," general prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told lawmakers in parliament earlier.

He claimed she had made a deal with leaders of Russian-backed separatist republics in the country's east to "obtain the weapons necessary for such an attack, in particular mortars of 120 mm caliber, small arms, sniper rifles, combat grenades".

Lutsenko said the planned attack would have brought a "sea of blood, chaos" to central Kiev.

He showed lawmakers a 30-minute video of a woman who looked like Savchenko talking to two apparently Ukrainian officers about plans to attack parliament.

"I propose a coup d'etat, they should be eliminated physically, all of them in one moment," said a woman resembling Savchenko in the video, before drawing a plan of parliament to explain where to throw grenades inside the building to create an explosion.

"Just one person can do it in a minute and a half...I myself will certainly be able to throw six grenades," the woman in the video said.

Savchenko was present in the chamber during the video broadcast and watched it with a smile, but did not provide any explanation.

The parliament approved lifting Savchenko's immunity from prosecution as an MP and, in a separate vote, authorised her arrest by 268 votes to 10, minutes after Lutsenko's speech.

In 2014, the 36-year-old former combat pilot was captured while fighting against Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and found guilty of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists in the country's war-torn east.

She spent around two years in a Russian prison and became a symbol of Ukraine's resistance, launching several hunger strikes.

Savchenko returned to a hero's welcome to Kiev in May, 2016 as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.

But her political star has faded since her return to Kiev, where she became a lawmaker for former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's political party.

She has regularly stirred controversy and contradicted President Petro Poroshenko's policies by supporting direct talks with pro-Kremlin separatists and visiting rebel-held territory. </s> WARSAW, Poland — Ukrainian opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili says he will continue to rally people against the nation's authorities from abroad, following his deportation from the country.

Saakashvili was deported from Ukraine to Poland on Monday after being detained by armed, masked men at a restaurant in Kiev and rushed to the airport.

At a news conference in Warsaw Tuesday he described the deportation as having taken place by force and against international laws.

He vowed to continue rallying Ukrainians against the nation's authorities, saying they are corrupt. He said he will find a way to return to Ukraine, insisting it is his country.

Saakashvili was Georgia's president from 2004-13, and later was given a high position in Ukraine by then-ally President Petro Poroshenko. He has since criticized Poroshenko for failing to stem corruption. </s> "This provocation has been carried out by UK secret services. We are not provided with any facts, they refuse to cooperate with us. Such a state of affairs brings us to the judgment that it is a provocation organized by secret services," Yakovenko told the NTV broadcaster.

The diplomat said that the provocation has been caused by two reasons, including the need to hide the fact that London had accepted almost all the conditions laid down by Brussels in the Brexit talks. The second reason is the intention to be a leader in the so-called deterrence of Russia and the need to gain the support of both parliament and people.

READ MORE: Polish Politician: Ex-Spy Skripal Was 'Highly Likely' Poisoned by CIA

Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer, who also worked for UK intelligence, and his daughter Yulia have been in the hospital since March 4 due to exposure to what UK experts say is the A234 nerve agent. The Salisbury District Hospital medical staff said that Yulia had come out of a coma, began talking and was recovering rapidly, while her father, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, was still in a critical but stable condition.

Russia has strongly rejected the accusations voiced by UK officials and offered to assist in the investigation. Following the decision of several countries to expel diplomats, Moscow has responded to the expulsions by taking reciprocal measures with regard to the states that expelled Russian diplomats.
Poland detains Yekaterina C., a Russian woman who was part of a pro-Russian group that sought to whip up tension between Poland and Ukraine, and expels her.