Polish court sentences two Russian nationals to 5.5 years in prison for espionage and Wagner Group mercenary recruiting after they posted stickers and distributed leaflets

A Polish court has sentenced two Russian nationals, identified as Andrey G. and Alexey T., to 5.5 years in prison on charges of espionage and recruiting mercenaries for Wagner Group. Both were also fined 30,000 zlotys (roughly $7,600). Prosecutors sought a penalty of eight years in prison and reportedly plan to challenge the ruling.

Polish Internal Security Agency agents arrested the two Russian nationals in Warsaw in August 2023 on suspicion of distributing several hundred stickers in Warsaw and Krakow advertising job opportunities at the Wagner Group Russian private military company. The stickers featured a QR code with recruiters’ contact information.

The Krakow District Court also recognized that the men participated in a “hybrid war” to destabilize Poland and other E.U. countries by distributing leaflets in France and Germany that “mocked and discredited” these states’ governments and defense policies.

The two Russian nationals neither pleaded guilty nor denied distributing the stickers.

In the summer of 2023, when Wagner Group mercenaries fled to Belarus after staging a mutiny in Russia, Polish authorities called it a “negative signal.” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko later remarked that he was starting to feel “uneasy” about the Wagner fighters stationed in Belarus, as they were eager to “go on an excursion to Warsaw.”

In late July 2023, Mateusz Morawiecki, then Poland’s prime minister, claimed that more than a hundred Wagner mercenaries had allegedly approached the Suwalki Gap (a sparsely populated area around the border between Lithuania and Poland). Morawiecki called it “a step toward further hybrid attacks on Polish territory.”