Two Russians Face Trial in Poland for Promoting Wagner Group in the EU

Two Russians are on trial in Poland for distributing leaflets in Krakow calling for people to join the Wagner Group, which has been declared as a terrorist organization in the EU.

According to Polish media RMF24, Andrey G. and Alexey T. were charged with cooperating with a foreign intelligence agency and participating in an international armed group aiming to commit terrorist acts. They operated not only in Poland, including Krakow and Warsaw, but also in other EU countries, including Germany and France.

The two men are accused of attempting to recruit new members for the Wagner Group including the distribution of stickers showing a QR code that linked to the organization’s recruitment website.

“We got the Wagner Group leaflets in Moscow. We were supposed to post 3,000 leaflets in Krakow and Warsaw, but we only managed to post 200. We were supposed to take pictures after posting them. I didn’t want to do propaganda, I just wanted to make money,” one of the Russians claimed in court.

The men posted advertisements in fast food and café restrooms near Krakow's market square, at the Polish Aviation Museum, near the Schindler Museum, and in Kazimierz. In Warsaw, they posted them in eateries, parks, and near bridges over the Vistula River.

The defendants also had to report the locations where they posted the stickers. According to the prosecution, this information was passed to a Russian intelligence organization.

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As RMF24 reports, both Russians testified in court: one claimed that before the arrest, he was a director of a textile factory, while the other admitted to being unemployed.

The indictment was filed in June by the prosecutor of the Malopolska Organized Crime Department, with case-related material running to 600 pages. One of the accused denies his guilt and refused to provide explanations.

The men were arrested by the Polish Internal Security Agency in Warsaw in August 2023. If found guilty they face up to 10 years in prison.

The Wagner Group is a Russian private military company considered an unofficial arm of the Russian armed forces and financed by the Kremlin, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted. The organization has close ties with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU), one of Russia’s key intelligence agencies.

Wagner is often used as a tool to achieve Russia’s military and political objectives, allowing it to operate at a distance without exposing official state structures. It has been involved in combat operations in various regions worldwide, including Syria, Ukraine, Africa, and other countries.

Wagner members were present in Ukraine during the annexation of Crimea and actively participated in fighting in Donbas from 2014. They have been integrated into Russia’s military operations in Ukraine since the full-scale war began in 2022.

Wagner members are frequently accused of human rights violations, war crimes, and violence. Their methods include brutal punitive operations, kidnappings, and terrorizing the civilian population.

Following a failed coup attempt in June 2023, when Wagner's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his forces marched on Moscow in protest against the Russian Defense Ministry's leadership, the situation around the group changed.

Prigozhin, after reaching a deal with the Kremlin, was forced to step aside and moved to Belarus before being killed in a suspected assassination attack on his private aircraft in August 2023.