The commission’s chief, General Jarosław Stróżyk, the head of Poland’s military counterintelligence, unveiled the body’s findings as Warsaw grapples with what it says is an intense campaign by Moscow to destabilize the country.
The commission’s probe is part of a wider investigation into a slew of alleged abuses by Poland’s previous government, which was led by the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
“Diplomatic treason” is a charge under which public officials judged to have acted to Poland’s detriment in foreign affairs can be jailed for 10 years.
Stróżyk said that Antoni Macierewicz, who was defense minister under PiS, had decided that the Polish military should pull out of an international program to buy tanker planes capable of aerial refueling.
The general added that the move damaged Poland, saying: “It was an arbitrary, unfounded, thoughtless, short-sighted, unjustified and ill-considered decision, surprising for the General Staff... [and] probably dictated to a large extent by personal aversion to [Poland’s] EU partners.”
Responding to the commission’s findings, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said that "if Antoni Macierewicz were a Russian agent, he could not have performed his task better".
Macierewicz, meanwhile, described the commission’s report as "absurd.”
Macierewicz is a controversial figure who is considered by many as a hardliner within PiS, which was ousted in parliamentary elections late last year and replaced by a pro-EU government.
Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, earlier this year accused Macierewicz of undermining the Polish Army by allegedly surrounding himself with people who may have promoted a pro-Russian agenda.
Macierewicz served as defense minister from 2015-2018 in the Law and Justice government, and is a close and loyal associate of Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the PiS leader who is also Tusk’s bitter political opponent.
The commission headed by Stróżyk was set up in May. Its findings come after Poland’s domestic security agency said last week that Russian black ops teams have intensified sabotage activities in Poland this year.
The agency added that close to 20 people have been charged in ongoing investigations into sabotage activities.
