The 55-year-old Russian national recently detained in Poland on espionage charges is Moscow resident Alexander Mashovets, who has spent years photographing trains, airplanes, and other forms of transportation, according to a Facebook post by his sister, Kseniya Sukhorukova, who works for Russia’s state-run Pervy Kanal (lit. “Channel One”). The Insider found numerous train photographs on Mashovets’ Instagram and Facebook pages, as well as posts on RailGallery, a specialized railway photography website that is currently unavailable.
Mashovets runs an Instagram page with more than 5,000 followers. His profile lists travel, aviation, railways, transportation, and architecture among his interests, and a significant share of his more than 2,000 posts feature trains, airplanes, and other vehicles. He has published photographs of trains in Germany, Estonia, and Hungary, among other countries. The images appear on his account going back to at least 2023. Mashovets also uploaded photographs of trains taken in various countries to the specialized website RailGallery. Search-engine results still show references to those posts (although the pages themselves can no longer be opened).
Mashovets also communicated with other railway enthusiasts on RailGallery. In a discussion indexed by search engines and dated March 2026, he described meeting the driver of a locomotive he had photographed in Germany. Mashovets said he contacted the driver through Instagram and met him again during a later trip to the country. “Behind every ‘piece of metal’ in the frame are people,” Mashovets wrote.
RailGallery itself stopped operating on Oct. 15 amid criminal proceedings against its administrators in Russia. Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court ordered Denis Yeskov and Anatoly Nagornov to be held in custody in a case involving alleged unlawful interference with critical information infrastructure. Investigators accuse them of illegally obtaining information belonging to an organization and protected as a commercial secret, copying it and publishing it on their website. They face five to 10 years in prison. In 2023, photographs from RailGallery were used in an investigation by the Dossier Center into Vladimir Putin’s alleged armored train.
According to Sukhorukova, her brother traveled to Poland on a business trip and stopped responding on the evening of Oct. 25. His relatives did not know where he was until they read about the detention in a local Polish newspaper. She said that even 72 hours after his arrest, he had not been allowed to call his family. The family itself contacted the Russian Embassy.
As Sukhorukova wrote:
“Those who know Sasha understand how absurd and frightening this accusation sounds. Photographing railway transport has been his longtime hobby, going back to his youth. His Facebook page has millions of photographs of trains, railway cars, and airplanes. This is his hobby, not some kind of secret activity.”
The Insider sent Sukhorukova questions about the circumstances of Mashovets’ detention and his work. As of the time of publication, she had read the message but had not responded.
As Polish outlet RMF24 previously reported, Mashovets was detained in the city of Świdnica, in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, while photographing passing trains and railway infrastructure. Police officers providing security at a soccer match noticed a Volkswagen parked near a railroad crossing. According to police, the driver quickly drove away after seeing the patrol. He was later found near another railway facility, where officers said he again tried to return to his vehicle when police appeared.
Police found professional photography equipment in his possession. According to the Polish prosecutor’s office, searches of Mashovets’ car and apartment uncovered cameras, phones, laptops, a tablet, external drives, memory cards, and four Russian passports. Investigators said the electronic devices contained hundreds of thousands of files, including photographs of railways, train stations, airports, and telecommunications infrastructure in Poland and other countries. Polish Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Gałecka said police seized 250,000 photographs.
Investigators accuse Mashovets of participating in the activities of a foreign intelligence service. According to law enforcement authorities, he collected images of transport infrastructure and industrial facilities for transfer to foreign intelligence. Mashovets pleaded not guilty. On Oct. 28, a court ordered him held in pretrial detention for three months. The charge carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
