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Russian activist Igor Rogov, who was arrested in Poland in August 2024, has confessed to working for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), saying that he had been recruited while still in Russia. The news outlet WP Wiadomości reported on his case.
Rogov arrived in Poland in 2022 as a political refugee. The authorities provided him with housing and a monthly allowance of 5,000 zlotys ($1,350). On behalf of the FSB, Rogov wrote reports on conferences held by the opposition organization Open Russia and passed them on to his handler, a man named Yevgeny. During a trip back to Russia to visit her family, Rogov’s wife, Irina, delivered a package containing Polish vodka and cookies, along with an encrypted flash drive. The drive contained data on Polish Foreign Ministry officials, employees of the National Agency for Academic Exchange, and university lecturers who had worked with Russian opposition members.
In his testimony, Rogov said that he cooperated under duress, claiming that the Russian security services had threatened to mobilize his father for the war. The first hearing in the case of Rogov and his wife is scheduled for Dec. 8. Both are accused of carrying out espionage activities between February and August 2022 and face sentences ranging from eight years to life imprisonment.
Separately, Rogov has been charged with arranging the delivery of a package containing explosives, activities that took place in July 2024. The package, which contained liquid explosives, detonators, and a power source, was intercepted at a sorting center. On Rogov’s phone, investigators found photos of a gas pipeline in Sosnowiec and a heating line operated by the company Tauron. In another report, WP suggested that a thermos with a magnetic bottom found in the package could have been intended for use in sabotaging such facilities, though the outlet noted that this was merely an interpretation — “one could infer that.”
Alexander Skrylnikov, a journalist with Vot Tak, notes that the espionage charge and the package incident are two separate parts of the case. The Polish prosecutor’s office explicitly refers to Rogov’s work for the FSB in 2022, but the part of the indictment concerning the 2024 package incident does not mention the Russian security services at all, only stating that Rogov participated in sending the package together with two Ukrainians and a Russian, without specifying on whose orders or for what purpose it was done.
Earlier, a Vot Tak source claimed that the package was part of a Ukrainian intelligence operation to transport explosive components into Russia, and that Rogov was detained because the Ukrainian side had failed to inform its Polish counterparts. However, it remains unclear why this source — allegedly involved in such an operation — was in Russia at the time of the interview. Skrylnikov concludes that it is currently impossible to definitively establish a link between the package incident and Rogov’s work for the Russian security services.