President Andrzej Duda's words on alleged cooperation between Polish and Russian services. “This statement puts the president in a bad light”

President Andrzej Duda, commenting on Thursday on the issue of disclosing the files to Pavel Rubtsov during a press conference with the president Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda in Lublin, said that it was a “bizarre situation”. – As far as I remember, in 2012 an agreement was concluded between the Military Counterintelligence Service and the FSB, in terms of cooperation. This was during the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed his consent to it. Is this cooperation between the Russian services and the services of the Republic of Poland still continuing under the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk? Because that's what it looks like – he also said.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, referring to Duda's statement, said that “it was not only very unwise and so frivolous”, but these words “are very damaging to Poland's interests, they directly affect Poland's security”.

He said that “the reason why the president said this is absurd”. – You know that in the times PiS and the president must have certainly known about this, about cases like Rubtsov's, so presenting the indictment to people suspected of espionage and, at their request, presenting all the files, the full files for inspection, took place 12 times. 12 times during the PiS government, the prosecutor's office acted in exactly the same way – he said.

He stressed that “this has nothing to do with secret information, the disclosure of which could pose a threat to state security.”

READ ALSO: Donald Tusk: The president sometimes compromises himself. We have become accustomed to it. But these words undermine Poland's security

Deputy Minister of National Defense Paweł Zalewski (Polska 2050), asked on Friday in “Fakty po Faktach” whether the words of President Andrzej Duda could have undermined the trust in Poland of, for example, allies, said that “if it were the case that President Duda was integral in his seriousness at home and abroad, his words would be interpreted in such a way that it would undermine the seriousness of the Polish state.”

He assessed that the president “sometimes says serious things”. – I remember his interview when he was returning from Kiev, where exactly in this case, this Mr. Rubtsov, the GRU agent, was asked about the exchange, his, for example, Mr. Poczobut and several other people. Well, he had a very, in my opinion, correct state answer, showing what the conditions of this exchange were and that it was simply impossible – he recalled.

– So on the one hand, sometimes you muster seriousness and make state statements, and on the other hand, sometimes you make completely frivolous things – said Zalewski. He added that he regretted it very much, because he would like to “see in the president a man who maintains this state seriousness from the beginning to the end”.

According to Zalewski, “this statement puts the president in a bad light”. – Firstly, because he accuses the current services, people who are patriots, who defend Poland's interests, of unworthy things. And this reflects badly on the president – he said. – Secondly, I don't really understand why he is doing this – he added.

He repeated that in his opinion “the president is not completely serious and that is the only explanation I give for it.”

PiS MP Marcin Ociepa (president of the OdNowa association) said that “I perfectly understand the president's indignation”.

Asked whether such words do not undermine trust in Poland, he assessed that the attention of “public opinion is being brought to the words of the president in a situation where there was a scandal in the prosecutor's office, to errors in the prosecutor's office”.

– We should be talking about the resignation of the Minister of Justice, and we are talking about whether the president had the right to say it. He said it in the presence of the President of Lithuania, who is subject to the same threats – infiltration of Russian services, Lithuanian media, Lithuanian politics and business. These are common experiences of Central and Eastern Europe – he added.

“Rzeczpospolita” wrote on Thursday that GRU officer Pavel Rubtsov, who posed as Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez, left Poland as part of a prisoner exchange between the West and Russiareceived access to investigation materials, including secret ones.

The National Prosecutor's Office, referring to the case, emphasized that the prosecutor is obliged to provide access to the files to the suspect against whom he has filed a motion to apply temporary arrest to the court and in such a situation there is no possibility of refusing to provide access to them. Przemysław Nowak, the spokesman for the National Prosecutor's Office, assured, however, that the files provided did not contain any state secrets that could be harmful to Poland.

National prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk said on Thursday in “Kropka nad i” on TVN24 that “the content of this classified material from the substantive and legal perspective did not surprise the accused himself in any way”. – He learned from these materials what he did for a living, and therefore what we know and why we are accusing him of committing a crime under Article 130, paragraph 1 of the Penal Code – continued the national prosecutor.

He emphasized that “there are no names, no findings and circumstances that could harm the interests of the Republic of Poland”. – There are no operational techniques, no methods used. From this material, the accused learned what the Polish services know, how he passed on information to the Russian Federation. Only that. So he learned about his own activities, about what he did to the detriment and Ukraineand Poland. Nothing more – said Korneluk.

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