Warsaw police have arrested a man suspected of stabbing two Ukrainians on a bus over their nationality, police said. A court ordered him held in custody, and the charges he faces carry long prison terms.

Russia's full-scale war drove nearly a million Ukrainians to seek protection in Poland, and attacks on them for their nationality grew this year. Polish police received 180 reports of hate crimes against Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, over 30% more than a year earlier.

Police tracked the suspect to a forest

The attack took place on a Warsaw city bus in mid-October. The attacker stabbed and slashed two passengers, both Ukrainian citizens, and fled before police arrived. Both victims went to hospital with multiple stab and cut wounds. Police found that he attacked them because of their nationality.

Officers quickly identified the suspect but spent days locating him. The 30-year-old was hiding and living in a forest in Warsaw's northern Bielany district, where police detained him last weekend.

He faces three charges. Two concern the bus attack: attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, and causing injuries lasting more than seven days. The third covers threats against another man at a Warsaw venue in August 2024.

Police said he acted as a repeat offender, within five years of serving a prison term for a similar crime. The charges carry three to 20 years in prison. At prosecutors' request, a court ordered him held for three months.

This year's attacks on Ukrainians in Poland

In early August, Ukraine's ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, said anti-Ukrainian remarks and attacks had risen by about 30%. Days later, people rallied in 22 Polish cities against violence toward Ukrainians and other minorities.

Other recent cases this year include:

• In late July, police in Wrocław detained two of three men suspected of beating a young Ukrainian couple.
• On 14 August, a woman allegedly attacked a Ukrainian girl and her younger brother in a Bydgoszcz park after hearing them speak Ukrainian. Prosecutors charged her four days later.
• In September, a man punched a 20-year-old Ukrainian tourist in the head at a crossing in central Warsaw, knocking him unconscious. Police detained the attacker, who gave no motive.

Tensions rose again in late September, when a Ukrainian man allegedly killed a priest in a knife attack at a monastery in Jarosław. Bodnar said some Polish politicians and journalists used it to argue for deporting Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, police in southwestern Poland detained a Russian citizen suspected of spying, after catching him photographing trains and railway infrastructure. Russia's suspected sabotage campaign keeps reaching Poland and the rest of Europe, and Ukraine's intelligence warned last week that Russia may stage sabotage in Eastern Europe and try to pin it on Kyiv.

U.S. federal judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who presided over the criminal case against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, died Wednesday at the age of 92, and his pending cases will pass to another judge.

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Alvin K. Hellerstein died Wednesday at 92 of natural causes after nearly three decades presiding over high-profile matters. He had led the penal process against President Maduro and Cilia Flores since the two were kidnapped on January 3 during a U.S. military incursion into Venezuelan territory.

Ed Friedland, administrative director of the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York, confirmed the death.

RELATED: Global Manifesto Demands Immediate Freedom for President Maduro and Cilia Flores

Hellerstein held the role for nearly three decades. He was appointed in 1998 by then U.S President Bill Clinton to the Southern District of New York, considered one of the most significant federal tribunals in United States.

BDE: Longtime Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, an Orthodox Jew appointed by President Clinton in 1998, has died at 92, according to a court spokesperson. He was overseeing the prosecution of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/w0nHyrcwc2

— KolHaolam (@KolHaolam) October 28, 2026

A New Judge

The federal case against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has a new judge. Analisa Torres will preside over the Southern District of New York proceedings after the death of Alvin K. Hellerstein, court records confirmed Wednesday.

The tribunal posted a document covering the reassignment of matters “previously assigned to judges no longer serving due to retirement or death.” The notice names Torres as the magistrate now handling the file.

The court’s standard procedure produced the transition. A docket left by a deceased judge passes to a colleague, assigned without public choice. The reassignment document makes no special provision for the President Maduro file, treating it like every other pending matter.

Analisa Torres was born in New York in 1959. She reached the federal bench in 2013 by appointment of President Barack Obama, and she has since presided over a wide range of civil, criminal, and regulatory matters.

Her path runs deep in the law. Descended from a family of Puerto Rican judges, she graduated with honors from Harvard, earned her doctorate at Columbia Law School, and worked in private firms before entering the courts. Before her federal appointment she sat for almost a decade on the New York State Supreme Court. Earlier she served on the city’s civil and criminal benches.

New judge on the Maduro case is Analisa Torres, a Barack Obama appointee who took the bench in 2013. https://t.co/y37dLBuXia pic.twitter.com/YmbF6pAm7A

— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) October 28, 2026

June Trial Still Scheduled

The trial against the Venezuelan President and his wife remains set for June 14, 2027. The judge’s death did not alter that date, and the schedule already fixed by the court holds.

On October 15, President Maduro and Flores appeared at a judicial hearing in New York after prosecutors tightened the accusations against them. The two listened to the arguments and pleaded “not guilty” to the new charges of alleged conspiracy to commit torture brought by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

That same day Hellerstein accepted a request presented by both the prosecution and the defense to postpone the start of the trial by two weeks. The extra time allows both sides to present pretrial motions.

The next hearing was programmed for December 17. On that date the defense will argue its motions to dismiss the case. The outcome of those arguments could reshape the proceeding before it reaches a jury. President Maduro’s lawyers affirmed that sovereign immunity shields the President from prosecution in a foreign court.

Hellerstein’s career extended far beyond this single file. Over nearly three decades on the federal bench he supervised a wide variety of matters, including the litigation tied to the September 11 attacks.

That new judge will inherit the pretrial motions, the pending defense requests, and the responsibility of presiding over a trial that involves a sitting head of State and his spouse.

Venezuelan authorities have characterized the detention of President Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores as a kidnapping carried out during a military incursion into sovereign territory. The December 17 hearing stands as the next concrete step in a process scheduled to stretch into mid 2027.