2024-07-18 18:53 update: 2024-07-19, 15:01
Photo: PAP/Alena Solomonova
Poland's defence minister has reacted with dismay to a media report that, under the previous government, a state-owned company sold to an Iranian firm components later fitted in Iranian combat drones that Russia used in its attacks against Ukraine.
On Thursday, the private broadcaster Radio Zet reported that the Internal Security Agency (ABW) had discovered that a Polish company Wytwornia Sprzetu Komunikacyjnego (WSK) based in Poznan, western Poland, was selling spare parts to the Iran Motorsazan Company, a producer of agricultural tractors. Through this route, fuel pumps were forwarded to Iranian factories producing Shahed 136 combat drones which were then bought by Russia and used to carry out strikes in Ukraine.
Reacting to the report, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland's defence minister, said later on Thursday that this is "a bad situation for Poland, for our image, for our Polish-Ukrainian relations."
He told Radio Zet that, in fact, the ABW launched the investigation into the case in 2022, and charges against the Poznan company’s management were brought already in 2023.
At a later press conference, Kosianiak-Kamysz said that all such transactions must be subject to the supervision of the state's security services.
"The sale of components to a tractor manufacturing company "seems like a fairly safe transaction at first glance, but it shows how sensitive one has to be when selling anything to countries that support Russia in its attacks on Ukraine and supply it with military equipment or components of this equipment."
Cezary Tomczyk, a deputy defence minister, told reporters that "if in 2022, without the supervision of the special services, parts made by some Polish companies, both state-owned and state-supervised, were actually applied in armaments used to attack Ukraine, it would mean that the state of Mr (Mariusz) Blaszczak (former defence minister - PAP) probably went bankrupt for the third time."
Kosiniak-Kamysz added that "actions are being taken and now it is important to draw conclusions."
He said that Poland will now be looking into all its contracts with countries which today support Russia, such as Iran.
The WSK-Poznan management announced that they were making every effort to clarify the matter of the parts exports to Iran and are ready to cooperate with the authorities conducting the investigation.
In September last year, the British daily Guardian quoted a report submitted by Ukrainian authorities to the G7 countries on parts used to produce Shahed drones, which according to the report were manufactured in 52 countries of the Russia sanctions coalition, including the US, Canada, Poland and Japan. Iran bought these components through intermediaries from third countries, the report claimed. (PAP)
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