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The Russian GRU recruits Ukrainians in Poland, while ex-POWs share evidence of torture at Russian detention facility

The Russian GRU recruits Ukrainians in Poland

The Russian GRU recruits Ukrainians in Poland

The Russian GRU recruits Ukrainians in Poland; ex-POWs share evidence of torture at Russian detention facility; Jens Stoltenberg downplayed the idea of possible territorial concessions by Ukraine suggested by Stian Jenssen, a NATO official. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s supporters publish threats to jurors in the ex-president’s case.

The Page offers a digest of Western mass media at the end of the August 14–18, 2023, business week.

The Russian GRU recruited Ukrainian refugees in Poland

An operation by the Russian GRU was uncovered in Poland, The Washington Post reports. According to investigators from the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW), the spies started posting cryptic job listings on Russian-language Telegram channels that are frequented by Ukrainian refugees early this year.

For a reward of up to $12, they instructed recruits to post flyers or make graffities with propagandistic messages like "POLAND ≠ UKRAINE" or "NATO GO HOME." Distributing such material served two purposes, investigators said: fanning anti-Ukraine sentiment in Poland but also testing recruits’ willingness to carry out assignments against the government hosting them.

Sergey Naryshkin, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Photo: Getty Images

Sergey Naryshkin, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Photo: Getty Images

Those who sent photos showing they had done what was asked were given more dangerous assignments. They were instructed to buy burner cellphones and cameras that would be passed to other recruits who scouted rail yards, airfields, and seaports, and also hid tracking devices in military cargo. Then, in March, came new orders to derail trains carrying weapons to Ukraine and commit arson attacks and assassinations. These were listed at only several hundred dollars, according to ABW officials.

The mysterious employers are the GRU

Polish authorities believe that the mysterious employer was Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, and that the foiled operation posed the most serious Russian threat on NATO soil since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last year. Russia’s objective was to disrupt a weapons pipeline through Poland that accounts for more than 80 percent of the military hardware delivered to Ukraine.

The case also has political sensitivities for Warsaw, where officials have not publicly acknowledged that 12 Ukrainian refugees are among those in custody, anxious to avoid the backlash Russia likely intended. Others arrested include one Russian and three citizens of Belarus.

U.S. spy agencies warned in February that Russia was likely to seek ways to sabotage logistic sites on NATO territory in ways that would be difficult to attribute to Russia. Polish investigators have since uncovered Russia’s planned arson attacks and an assassination, but they don’t believe the threat to be eliminated. According to ABW officials, Russia’s spy services remain active in Poland and "will try to eliminate the mistakes they made."

Attendees of the march “Together for Peace in Ukraine” walking Wawel Castle to Main Square on February 24, 2023 in Krakow. Photo: Getty Images

Attendees of the march “Together for Peace in Ukraine” walking Wawel Castle to Main Square on February 24, 2023 in Krakow. Photo: Getty Images

NATO won’t press Ukraine to trade territories, says Stoltenberg

According to The Guardian, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said it would be up to Ukraine to decide when it wanted to negotiate peace with Russia. The head of the military alliance was speaking at the Arendal democracy festival where a couple of days earlier his chief of staff Stian Jenssen had caused controversy by suggesting that Ukraine could "give up territory" for peace and NATO membership.

Quote"If you want a lasting, just peace, then military support for Ukraine is the way to get there. There is no doubt about that," Stoltenberg underscored and said that only Ukraine could make decisions about negotiations.
Jens Stoltenberg and Volodymyr Zelenskyi at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Photo: Getty Images

Jens Stoltenberg and Volodymyr Zelenskyi at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Photo: Getty Images

It was the third effort in three days to smooth over the row caused by Jenssen’s words on Tuesday. NATO issued a statement that evening insisting its policy of support for Ukraine had not changed, while on Wednesday Jenssen apologized and said he had made a mistake in speaking as simplistically as he did.

On Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, criticized the idea of handing over territory.

Quote"Criminals must not be encouraged by the phrase ‘land for peace,’" he wrote on the X social media network, formerly Twitter.

Podolyak, who had previously criticized Jenssen’s comments, was primarily taking aim at Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, who gave an interview to Le Figaro calling for "diplomacy, discussions, and talks" to end the war. Sarkozy said there was an ongoing risk of military escalation if the war continued.

Quote"Without compromise, nothing will be possible and we run the risk that the situation will degenerate at any moment. This powder keg could have frightful consequences," he said.

The BBC obtained evidence from Ukrainians tortured at Russian prison

Ukrainian service members released in prisoner exchanges told in interviews with the BBC that they had been subjected to torture while in custody at a detention facility in south-western Russia. This is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

The ex-detainees released in prisoner exchanges alleged physical and psychological abuse by Russian officers and guards at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility Number Two, in the city of Taganrog. The testimonies, gathered during a weeks-long investigation, describe a consistent pattern of extreme violence and ill-treatment at the facility, one of the locations where Ukrainian prisoners of war have been held in Russia.

The service members interviewed by the BBC included two Azovstal defenders, senior lieutenant Artem Seredniak and senior sergeant Serhii Rotchuk; Iryna Stohnii, a combat medic; Denys Haiduk, a military surgeon; and Artem Dyblenko, a sergeant major at the 36th Marine Brigade. According to them, men and women at the Taganrog site are repeatedly beaten, including in the kidneys and chest, and given electric shocks in daily inspections and interrogations.

Russian guards constantly threaten and intimidate detainees, some of whom have given false confessions which were allegedly used as evidence against them in trials. Captives are constantly left under-nourished, and those who are injured are not given appropriate medical assistance, with reports of detainees dying at the facility. Those who have served in Azov or have tattoos are treated especially badly by the Russian guards.

The Russian government has not allowed any outside bodies, including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to visit the facility which before the war was used exclusively to hold Russian prisoners.

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, said nine in every 10 former detainees claimed they had been tortured while in Russian captivity.

Quote"This is the biggest challenge for me now: how to protect our people on the Russian side," Lubinets said. "Nobody knows how we can do it."
A woman wrapped in the flag of the Azov regiment stands among people honoring the memory of Ukrainian soldiers who died during the Russian shelling of Olenivka prison. Photo: Getty Images

A woman wrapped in the flag of the Azov regiment stands among people honoring the memory of Ukrainian soldiers who died during the Russian shelling of Olenivka prison. Photo: Getty Images

Trump prosecutions: ex-president’s supporters threaten jurors

According to The New York Times, The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that it was investigating online threats against the grand jurors who voted this week to indict former President Donald J. Trump and 18 others, accusing them of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Having learned the jurors’ names from the indictment, the attackers shared their faces, social media profiles, and possible addresses and phone numbers on internet sites, in some cases with the suggestion that they should be harassed. The county sheriff’s office said in a statement that it was aware of online threats against grand jurors and was working with other agencies to track down their origin.

Other prosecutions of Mr. Trump have also resulted in threats. A Texas woman was charged this month with threatening to kill Tanya S. Chutkan, the judge in Washington who is overseeing the federal election interference case against the former president.

Former president Donald Trump signs autographs after his tee shot during the third day of the LIV Golf Invitational on August 13. Photo: Getty Images

Former president Donald Trump signs autographs after his tee shot during the third day of the LIV Golf Invitational on August 13. Photo: Getty Images

The jurors in the Georgia case were drawn from across Fulton County, where they approved the indictment on Monday. Soon thereafter, some on social media began revealing their personal details, urging others to make them "infamous" and to "make sure they can’t walk down the street."

The New York Times viewed writings on nearly a dozen channels of the messaging app Telegram, where the jurors’ information was being shared. In many of those channels, claims were made regarding the race or religious background of the jurors based on their names or their politics.

Georgia is one of the few states where the rules require the names of grand jurors approving an indictment to be disclosed. Michael Mears, a professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, says this is to let defense lawyers check if each of the jurors was selected legitimately. However, Jon B. Gould, a lawyer and criminologist at the University of California, Irvine, says the disclosure opens up the possibility that the jurors could be harassed for their decisions, especially in cases involving gangs and organized crime.

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