Russian Couple Convicted Of Espionage In Poland
- 9.07.2026, 18:47
They were sentenced to 7 and 3 years in prison.
Igor Rogov , a Russian national who was granted political asylum in Poland after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine—having presented himself as an opposition figure—and who collaborated with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) for several years, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison. This was reported on Thursday, July 9, by the Polish news outlet Onet, citing the District Court in Sosnowiec.
Rogov’s wife, Irina, was sentenced to 3 years. She was found guilty of aiding and abetting espionage. The court heard both cases as a single proceeding.
According to the findings of Polish investigators, Rogov—who was arrested by the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) in the summer of 2024 and had previously served as deputy head of the campaign headquarters for Alexei Navalny in Saransk, passed information to the FSB not only about Russian opposition figures who had emigrated to the West, but also about Polish organizations assisting Russian emigrants, the work of Polish Foreign Ministry officials, and teachers of the Polish language to Russians. According to the case file, he passed this information on a flash drive to his wife, who was planning to visit her relatives in Russia.
Igor Rogov told investigators that he had acted under pressure from the FSB, which allegedly blackmailed him by threatening to draft his father into the war against Ukraine. “I was under pressure; it seemed to me that these people knew everything about me. I was scared,” he said.
In addition, the investigation established that Igor Rogov was the recipient of a package containing bomb-making components—discovered in the summer of 2024 at a logistics center in Poland—including: nitroglycerin, a detonator in the form of a power bank, and a metal thermos containing a cumulative charge. According to Rogov, he was only supposed to receive the package—without knowing its contents—at the request of an acquaintance, Russian opposition figure Emil G., who also lived in Poland. Igor Rogov claimed that it was “just a routine favor.” According to the prosecution, he acted in collusion with two Ukrainian citizens and one Russian citizen. Security services seized the package at a courier company’s warehouse in the Łódź Voivodeship before it reached the recipient.
In addition to espionage, he was charged with participating in the shipment of a package containing an explosive substance and endangering people’s lives and health.
According to Polish media reports, Igor Rogov arrived in Poland in the spring of 2022. He presented himself as an opposition activist and told acquaintances that he was organizing rallies in Silesia against the regime of Vladimir Putin. According to him, the government in Warsaw invited him to the country after Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. As part of his support for the Russian opposition, Rogov was able to complete his studies in computer science, received a scholarship and social assistance amounting to 5,000 zlotys per month, as well as housing in a dormitory in the city of Sosnowiec. However, according to Poland’s Internal Security Agency, Rogov had been recruited by the FSB while still in Russia and continued to actively cooperate with it.
A key turning point in the investigation was the testimony of Irina Rogova, who, upon learning that her husband had begun an affair with another female emigrant from Russia, began revealing in private conversations that Igor had been working for many years with a certain FSB officer named Yevgeny. Rogov himself had admitted to his wife that he was working with him as early as “his first or second year” at a Russian university. At that time, he told her that he wrote reports for the FSB on various “Open Russia” conferences.
According to WP Wiadomości, the FSB officer Yevgeny, who was in charge of Igor Rogov, appears in some documents as Yevgeny Litko, who presumably lived in Germany and managed Russian intelligence operations from there. It is unknown whether Polish intelligence services attempted to determine his whereabouts.