A bungled bomb plot in Poland exposed a spy – but whose spy was he?

Summary

When exiled Russian opposition campaigner Igor Rogov was accused of working for the Kremlin, his friends were shocked. Could this young activist have really been an undercover agent? • The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order The police came for Igor Rogov because someone had mailed him a bomb-making kit. The eclectic mix of items – a chrome vacuum flask, a pair of marker pens, a power bank and a bottle of antifreeze fluid – might have seemed innocuous to an untrained eye, but Poland was on high alert in July 2024. Two months previously, a shopping mall in Warsaw had burned down in an arson attack; an Ikea in neighbouring Lithuania was also set on fire . Authorities believed it was a sabotage campaign masterminded by Russia’s intelligence services, intended to sow panic and undermine support for Ukraine. They feared it was only a matter of time before the Kremlin escalated further. A security officer at the parcel company’s warehouse was suspicious enough about the package to call in the authorities, who arrived with sniffer dogs and special equipment. X-rays of the marker pens showed they had 1980s Soviet-produced detonators concealed inside, while the flask had a false bottom containing a sachet of metallic powder. The power bank appeared to have been tampered with in some way, and a probe of the bottled liquid showed it contained a highly volatile nitroglycerine solution. With the right expertise, the items could be turned into a powerful bomb. Continue reading...

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