The Minister of defence of Poland Macierewicz Anthony (Antoni Macierewicz) is not shy inspired anti-Russian rhetoric and looks one of the most ardent opponents of the policy of the Kremlin. It is among traditionally nationalist and ultrametricity right, and his reputation seems to be very ambiguous. He gets support from the party “law and justice” Jaroslaw Kaczynski (jarosław Kaczynski) and intends to prove that the fall of the Polish President’s plane near Smolensk on 10 April 2010 was the result of a conspiracy of the Kremlin and the government of Donald Tusk (Donald Tusk), who now holds the presidency of the Council of Europe.
Anyway, in Warsaw there were articles about the proximity of the former activist of “Solidarity” to individuals who do not feel hostility towards Putin’s Russia. Le Monde tries to understand the situation.
Macierewicz turned the national centre for strategic studies (expert group neoconservative persuasion) in the present smithy of shots of the Ministry of defence. Anyway, not all of the analyst is consistent with the course of Polish government towards Russia. For example, the guy Krzysztof (Krzysztof Gaj) and Kvasnak Grzegorz (Grzegorz Kwasniak), the authors of a controversial report on the territorial defense for the Ministry, noted public doubts about NATO and support Russian intervention in Ukraine.
Director Nova Jacek Kotas (Jacek Kotas), who was Deputy defense Minister when Mazarevica in 2006-2007, maintains a close relationship with Robert Sulkowski (Robert Szustkowski): this businessman has a relationship with the Russian interest in strategic areas, including in Finance. Until recently Szostkowski was the Trustee of the Gambia in Moscow.
Unofficial sponsor
Sulkowski owns real estate holding Radius, while Kota sat on the Board of Directors of the parent company. At Radius has many subsidiaries, some of which are registered in Cyprus and offshore. Nova has long worked in the building owned by Radius. During transport, the Ministry of defense in 2006, the Kotas made from the office of Mazarevica the right of access to confidential documents. He Kotas called the accusations “absurd.” “Neither I nor Nova has no ties with Russia”, — he said to the press. Whatever it was, it rejected the request to answer our questions.
Another strange thing: in the entourage of defense Minister was a wealthy businessman Robert Lusnia (Robert Lusnia), unofficial sponsor political activities of Mazarevica since 1989. Lusnia — a close associate of Konrad Recase (Konrad Rekas), Deputy head of the Pro-Putin party “Change”. This is the Moscow-funded structure officially stands for “reorientation of the foreign policy of Poland” and closer ties with Russia and Belarus. In may 2016 the party leader Mateusz Piskorski (Mateusz Piskorski) was detained by the internal security Agency on charges of spying for Russia. In addition, Konrad Rekas was part of the leadership was founded in 2005 by Metservice euroskeptic “Patriotic movement”.
One of the episodes, which is the fruit of doubt about Mazarevica, was his role in the liquidation of the military information Service in 2006 (then he held the post of Deputy defense Minister in the first government of PS). At the moment among politicians there was consensus on the need to reform this legacy since communism Department, but the decision to publish the report on its dissolution (“Report of Mazarevica”) caused a real scandal. “This report is seriously weakened our intelligence. This document was supposed to be a military secret and kept under wraps”, — said Bogdan Klich (Bogdan Klich), the Minister of defence in the government of Donald Tusk from 2007 to 2011.
According to a retired senior military intelligence officers, “the report is an invaluable gift for enemy intelligence. Macarevich, described in detail the methods of work of our military intelligence, as well as the names of our agents, their informants and the details of current operations, including in Afghanistan. All this entailed very serious consequences. Several of our informants were exposed and killed.”
Even before the publication of the report, Macierewicz ordered its translation into the Russian language. This task was entrusted to received Polish citizenship Russian woman Irina Obukhova, which was not sworn, but had access to military counterintelligence. “For the transfer of documents of this kind requires not only the oath in the Ministry of defence, but the security check, which carefully analyzes every detail of your life”, — stressed the representative of the military leadership.
Anyway, check career Obukhova raises certain questions. In the 1980-ies she worked in Moscow at the “Intourist”, where he studied groups of foreigners, in particular by the delegations of Polish writers who visited the Soviet Union.
“During the cold war “Intourist” was under the control of the KGB. In fact, he was a front for Soviet intelligence,” says author and retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Polish intelligence Seversky Vincent (Vincent V. Severski). “The man who worked in this institution were not to cross the threshold of our Ministry of defence,” — said the expert on Russian security services.
In 1989, Obukhov moved to Poland and became friendly with the “Solidarity”. She married literary critic Marek Zielinski (Marek Zielinski), which was well received in the environment of Mazarevica after the collapse of the Communist system began a diplomatic career.
In the years of the previous centre-right majority of the military counter-intelligence for two years was engaged in business Obukhova, but was never able to come to convincing conclusions. Today, the responsible employees were dismissed and prosecuted by the military Department in court. In 2014, Macierewicz said that the translation of the report was made for “foreign experts and scientists.”
“Suspicions of the Minister of defence Anthony of Mazarevica in connection with the exploration or cooperation with Russia is not supported by any facts, as we have talked about this”, — said the Ministry of defense no detailed response to questions from Le Monde. “Despite the personal attacks on the Minister and his deputies, the current leadership of the Ministry will continue its work, the purpose of which is to ensure the security of Poland and its citizens”, — added in the Department, Recalling that sued for Gazeta Wyborcza and its Penteco journalist Tomasz (Tomasz Piatek), who wrote a book about Matservice.
