Poland says it thwarted Russian assassination attempt on U.S. citizen in Warsaw

Poland says it thwarted Russian assassination attempt on U.S. citizen in Warsaw - The Washington Post

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Poland says it thwarted Russian assassination attempt on U.S. citizen in Warsaw

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was the first time Russia attempted to assassinate a U.S. citizen on the territory of another NATO member.

August 14, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

Today at 8:00 a.m. EDT

*Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw this week. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)*

By

Joshua Yang

Polish security services have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen in the country, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday.

A Russian national working under orders of Russian intelligence was arrested Friday in Warsaw, Tusk told reporters. U.S. intelligence aided the effort, he said.

Officials described the target as a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian origin but did not release a name. Tusk said the individual was “uncomfortable for the Putin regime.”

Warsaw has accused Moscow of attacking Poland with increasingly bold “hybrid warfare,” including railway sabotage, forcing migrants across the border and sending drones over the country, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of assassinating several perceived adversaries on foreign soil. Alleged victims have included former intelligence official-turned-critic Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned with Polonium-210 in London in 2006; former lawmaker Denis Voronenkov, fatally shot outside a hotel in Kyiv in 2017; and military defector Maxim Kuzminov, shot and run over in a parking garage in Alicante, Spain, in 2024.

Russia allegedly attempted to poison Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for British intelligence, with the Russian nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England, in 2018.

Tusk said the attempt in Warsaw was Russia’s first against a U.S. citizen on the territory of another NATO member.

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