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Russia is planning to sow chaos with air transport attacks in Poland and elsewhere, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned.

His comments were the latest sign of what security experts charge is a Moscow-inspired campaign of sabotage and intimidation that began last year.

“The latest information confirms the validity of those fears Russia plans acts of terrorism in the air not only against Poland,” Tusk said at a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw on Wednesday.

Moscow has denied involvement in a number of mysterious explosions and destructions that have angered western leaders over the past year.

Experts say evidence suggests Russia was behind the explosions at logistics depots in Europe last summer, which could be a dry run for terrorist attacks on cargo flights to the US.

The explosions occurred at depots in Britain, Germany and Poland in July. Tusk did not mention this specifically.

In April, two German-Russian nationals were arrested in Bavaria for allegedly planning to attack military and logistics sites in Germany on behalf of Russia.

That same month, two men were accused of starting a fire in a warehouse in the UK containing aid shipments for Ukraine. English prosecutors accused them of working for the Russian government.

In October, Germany’s domestic spy chief said a plane narrowly avoided crashing after a parcel was destined for its hold. caught fire before the flight in a suspected act of sabotage. Thomas Haldenwang warned of a major increase in “aggressive behavior” by Russian agents.

Ken McCallum, head of Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service, said the same month that Russian military intelligence (GRU) “in particular is on a sustained mission to create chaos on the streets of Britain and Europe: we see arson, sabotage etc.”

Security experts say that the clear purpose of many attacks is to check the security of western states in a way that can prepare for a large-scale attack on a Nato country. .

“If you remove some of the Russian attacks that appear to be random attacks designed to sow fear, the rest of the attacks follow a clear pattern,” said Keir Giles, senior associate of Chatham House and author of the book Russia’s War on All.

“Russia is assessing defenses and assessing the capabilities of European states to respond,” Giles said. The plane’s plan “shows a clear readiness of the Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks that cause many civilian casualties.” He said that it was only by luck that the devices did not fly while the planes were in the air.

Nine people were arrested in Poland last year, suspected of plotting sabotage attacks in Europe in coordination with Russian intelligence. Poland’s government has also increased vigilance about Moscow-backed influence operations targeting May’s presidential election, following Romania’s unprecedented decision last month to cancel its vote due to Russian interference.

Poland, which takes over the EU rotating presidency on January 1, will push “to accelerate Ukraine’s access path” to the bloc, Tusk said.

Kyiv is applying for EU membership after a full-scale invasion of Russia in 2022 and has begun accession talks. Those negotiations are expected to last several years before the 27 member states decide which country to join the bloc.