Russia’s intelligence service is recruiting desperate, unknowing Ukrainian refugees to conduct intelligence and even sabotage operations in Poland, starting with paying them to distribute pro-Kremlin fliers around Poland but escalating within weeks to acts of war, the Washington Post reports.

Western nations have been supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammo by shipping them through neighboring countries; 80% of the material is funneled through Poland, which has a 300-mile border with Ukraine.  To date, Russia has not been able to disrupt this supply path, with military observers noting Russia has been unable to destroy a single supply train or convoy since the Kremlin order the invasion in February 2022.

The people who responded to the job offers, found in generically worded fliers, online ads or apps like Telegram, aimed at the thousands of refugees coming from Ukraine, were first told to hand out or post similar fliers.  They were then instructed to track shipments along roadways and ports.   In March, Polish authorities said the handlers–likely Russian GRU agents–told their “employees” that they were directed to derail a train headed to Ukraine.

Investigators later found others who had been ordered to set warehouses and other buildings afire, disrupt traffic, and even commit an assassination; those individuals either abandoned the “job” or turned to Ukrainian or Polish officials to report the activity.

Polish officials are already on edge over the number of mercenary Wagner soldiers who have been exiled to Belarus after an unsuccessful coup attempt.  The Wagner troops are passing through Poland to get to an isolated tract of Russian territory along the Baltic Sea.