The court of the Polish city of Lublin has found 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine guilty of preparing sabotage operations in favour of Moscow as a part of a spy network on Tuesday, 19 December.

As reported by AFP, the 16 people of interest were accused of espionage in November, specifically of preparing to blow up trains with humanitarian aid for Ukraine, as well as of spying on military facilities and critical infrastructure facilities.

14 out of them pleaded guilty but did not show up in court so the verdict was announced in absentia. Two other likely members of the spy network will be judged separately after they revoked their previous claims about admitting their guilt.

"Upon considering the case…the court found all the defendants guilty of the alleged crimes and established that some of them were acting as a part of an organised criminal group," judge Jaroslaw Kowalski said, announcing the verdict.

Barbara Markowska, spokesperson of the Lublin Court, told AFP that "Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians" were the members of the spy group without providing the details.

It is known that among the convicts there is Maxim S., a Russian hockey player from a Polish team from the city of Sosnowiec, who was arrested in June and, according to Polish media, two Ukrainian lawyers, a political scientist, a teacher of French, a pharmacist, and a software engineer".

According to the investigation, the members of the group received tasks from their Russian handlers via Telegram and were paid for them in crypto currency – anywhere from US$300 to US$10,000.