Warsaw has reacted angrily after Belarus arrested a Polish clergyman on suspicion of espionage.

Belarusian state media reported on Friday that agents from the state security service had detained the man and found documents on him related to joint military exercises planned by Belarus and its ally, Russia. Poland has called the move a provocation and promised a “response”.

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The priest, identified as Grzegorz Gawel, was arrested the previous day in the city of Lepel, east of the capital, Minsk. A Belarusian national was also detained.

State news agency Belta reported that the Polish suspect possessed a copy of a document concerning the Zapad 25 exercises due to take place this month. He also had Belarusian and foreign cash and a portable telephone SIM card registered to someone else.

The Zapad exercises, held every two years in either Belarus or Russia, are viewed with interest by Western countries because of Belarus’s proximity to three neighbours that are part of the NATO alliance – Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

“There is irrefutable evidence of the Polish citizen’s espionage activities,” Belta, the Belarusian state news agency, said. “A few minutes before his arrest, he received a secret military document. All of this was captured on video.”

Belta added that he had been trying to recruit the Belarusian national in his company and offered him money and small gifts.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters on Friday that Warsaw “will [not] accept such provocations or the nonsense spouted by the Belarusian side”.

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“I am not yet certain about the nature of our Jesuit’s visit [to Belarus], but according to my information, he went there to see a friend or acquaintance,” Tusk said.

A spokesman wrote on X that the Polish security services “do not employ clergymen to gather information on military exercises”.

Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said that the arrest was probably related to the upcoming military exercises. He pledged a reaction but did not provide details.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, relations between Poland, one of Kyiv’s main supporters in the European Union, and neighbouring Belarus, a Moscow ally, have sunk to a new low.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is one of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and has allowed Moscow to use his country’s territory for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, though he has said Belarusian servicemen will take no part in it.

Russia has also moved tactical nuclear weapons from its own borders into Belarus.

Poland accuses Belarus of arranging for a wave of asylum seekers from third countries to cross the border into Poland, in a bid to destabilise the EU.