As a hub for Western military supplies to neighbouring Ukraine during the more than two-year-old war with Russia, Poland has been on heightened alert for spying. On Monday, the government said it was verifying if a Polish judge, who had access to confidential information and asked for political asylum in Belarus, had been spying.

Polish prosecutors launched an investigation Monday into Judge Tomasz Szmydt, who fled to Belarus and made an appeal to be protected by its autocratic government.