Shocking statement: Tusk admits to taking hostages for further exchange

Commenting on the April 28 detainee exchange at the Belarusian-Polish border, the Polish Prime Minister unexpectedly admitted that he had deliberately taken hostages in order to later exchange them for the right people.

According to Tusk, none of this would have happened if the security services had not detained the citizens of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan at the right moment.

Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of the Polish regime:

"This time, we finally achieved what we had been working towards for over two years. This was made possible by the fact that our prisons held citizens important to Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, detained in Poland. This exchange would not have taken place if our services had not detained these individuals—citizens of third countries—at the right moment. As I already said, Russia and Belarus also needed people detained in connection with charges and actions against Romania and Moldova."

One of the prisoners in Warsaw was Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin. He was detained in mid-December 2025 for allegedly illegal excavations in Crimea and was scheduled for extradition to Ukraine. Butyagin's father previously stated that his son was deliberately lured to Poland.