Russian intelligence chief says US and Poland plan to divide Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Andrzej Duda attend a joint news briefing with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Latvian President Eagles Levits, and Estonian President Alar Karis (not pictured), as Russia’s offensive on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine on April 13, 2022. Photo Photo: Valentin Ogirenko/Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) – Russia’s foreign intelligence chief accused the United States and Poland on Thursday of plotting to gain influence in Ukraine, in the strongest signal from Moscow that the war could end with a forced division of Ukraine between the West and Ukraine. Russia.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR), cited unpublished information he said showed that the United States and Poland, NATO allies, were planning to restore Polish control over part of western Ukraine.

“According to the intelligence received by the Russian Foreign Intelligence, Washington and Warsaw are working on plans to impose tight military and political control of Poland on its historical property in Ukraine,” Naryshkin said in a rare statement from the KGB.

Poland ruled some of the areas that are now part of Ukraine at various times in the past, most recently between the two world wars. Western Ukraine, including the city of Lviv, was absorbed into the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.

The agency said the United States was discussing with Poland a plan under which Polish “peacekeepers” would enter, without authorization from NATO, into parts of western Ukraine where the chance of confrontation with Russian forces would be low.

The SVR, which after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 took over most of the KGB’s foreign espionage responsibilities in the Soviet era, did not publish its evidence and Reuters was unable to verify this.

The Polish Foreign Ministry could not be reached for comment on Naryshkin’s comments on Thursday.

Poland is one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in its resistance to the Russian invasion, sending weapons across the border and taking in some three million Ukrainian refugees.

Russia’s top legislator, Senator Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, said on Thursday that Poland plans to impose its control over part of Ukraine. No evidence was provided for the claim.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said this week that Ukraine was heading for collapse in several countries due to what he described as a US attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia. Read more

Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say this is a false excuse for an unjustified war of aggression by President Vladimir Putin.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge) Editing by Gareth Jones

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