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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has put his former defence chief and outspoken Russia critic in charge of the interior ministry amid heightened concerns about Moscow-backed spying.
Announcing his first government reshuffle since taking office in December, Tusk on Friday said Tomasz Siemoniak will run the interior ministry while retaining his current role as co-ordinator of domestic intelligence services. Siemoniak was defence minister from 2011 to 2015 during Tusk’s previous term as prime minister.
Tusk said that he had “unlimited trust” in Siemoniak, who has repeatedly warned about the Russian threat ever since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
Siemonak said last month that he was keen to be back at the heart of his country’s defence and internal security strategy: “It seems to me that these are absolutely the most important and fundamental issues for Poland at the moment.”
The Polish prime minister and his coalition have issued repeated warnings about Russian interference in Poland, in particular by using spies, disinformation and cyber attacks.
On Monday, Polish authorities lifted the immunity of a judge who defected to Belarus, clearing the way for an arrest warrant on spying charges to be issued on his name. Judge Tomasz Szmydt claims to have been persecuted by Tusk’s government, but he also called on Poland to improve its relations with Russia and Belarus after his arrival in Minsk.
Polish authorities on Wednesday acknowledged that multiple state institutions had recently been targeted by a cyber attack carried out by APT28, a hacker group associated with the Russian military intelligence service. The group has carried out several such attacks in recent years throughout Europe, including in 2023 on the party of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
In addition to the interior minister, Tusk also replaced three other ministers who are leaving his government to run in elections to the European parliament next month, including culture minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz.
In December Sienkiewicz oversaw the controversial overhaul of Poland’s state media company, which Tusk had long accused of being an instrument of propaganda. Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled the country for eight years until 2023, has filed multiple legal challenges, including about the public broadcaster’s management being replaced. Poland’s new culture minister is art historian and museum curator Hanna Wróblewska.
The cabinet changes come as Tusk has been struggling to uproot the state apparatus put in place by PiS. President Andrzej Duda, a PiS nominee, has backed some of the opposition’s attempts to scupper Tusk’s agenda, which has also been hampered by the constitutional court packed with PiS-appointed judges.
“These first months were months of breaking down the [PiS] wall, today it’s time to put things in order,” Tusk said Friday. He added that he might make further changes in his team depending “on the interest of the state”.
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