Russia using disinformation to stir hostility between Ukrainians and Poles, warn security services

Russia is using disinformation to stir animosity between Poles and Ukrainians, warns the spokesman for Poland’s security services. As an example, he pointed to the response to a recent killing in Warsaw, which the Polish far right falsely sought to blame on Ukrainians.

“Russian disinformation activities against Poland focus on arousing hostility between Poles and Ukrainians”, including by “attempt[ing] to convince Poles that by accepting refugees from Ukraine they are exposing themselves to economic crisis, security risks and social problems”, wrote Stanisław Żaryn.

That was the case with an incident earlier this month, when a man died after being stabbed during a fight on Nowy Świat, a street in central Warsaw, he continued.

In a video of the attack, voices speaking in Ukrainian could be heard. However, it was clear that they were coming from behind the camera. Nevertheless, some social media users claimed – without any evidence – that the attack had been carried out by Ukrainians.

That narrative was immediately picked up by the far right, including Confederation (Konfederacja), a party that sits in parliament. Its leaders held press conferences blaming the incident on foreigners and claiming that it was a result of the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s immigration policies.

“Foreigners stabbed a Pole who was trying to defend a woman,” wrote Robert Winnicki, a Confederation MP. “In recent months immigrants working as drivers in Warsaw have committed dozens of rapes…The mass immigration policy pursued by PiS has ‘Western’ effects.”

Even before welcoming millions of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war, Poland had one of the highest rates of immigration in the EU. For four years running it has issued more first residence permits to non-EU citizens than any other member state. A majority of those arrivals were also from Ukraine.

Confederation has long protested against that influx. In 2019, Winnicki warned that “the government, by opening up the country to mass immigration, is repeating the catastrophic path of the West”. He added that “preserving cultural, ethnic and religious cohesion is the most important challenge for our nation”.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Confederation has been the only party in parliament to oppose measures intended to support refugees, who it argues are being given unfair “privileges” at the expense of Poles.

Another prominent figure, Jerzy Kwaśniewski, the head of ultraconservative legal body Ordo Iuris, also responded to the recent incident in Warsaw by warning that Poland was following the path of some other European countries.

Poland must have “either a policy of zero tolerance and zero political correctness or a slide towards ‘no-go zones’ and tolerated violence”, tweeted Kwaśniewski, whose organisation has led influential campaigns against “LGBT ideology” and in favour of tightening the abortion law.

Yet it soon began to emerge that in fact the perpetrators of the attack on Nowy Świat were likely to be Polish. This was later confirmed by police and prosecutors, who revealed the names and images of the two men – both Polish – they were seeking on suspicion of carrying out the killing.

In his statement today, Żaryn noted that the initial disinformation surrounding the incident was intended to “pursue the Kremlin’s political interests” by exploiting “emotions in society” to create “information chaos” and “hostility between Poles and Ukrainians”.

Żaryn did not name any specific individuals and groups responsible for spreading such disinformation. Critics of Ordo Iuris and Confederation have accused them in the past of pushing the Kremlin’s agenda, and even of receiving Russian funding, but there is no evidence of such links and both organisations deny it.

After it emerged that the perpetrators of the incident in Warsaw were likely to be Polish, Kwaśniewski deleted his tweet, but also argued that he had never specifically blamed the attack on foreigners.

Yesterday, in an interview with Onet, one of the leaders of Confederation, Krzysztof Bosak, admitted that he had “made a mistake” in blaming the killing on foreigners. But he refused to apologise, saying that his mistake had been to “believe the media” and repeat what he had read.

However, after the attack in Warsaw, major Polish media outlets did not report the nationality of the attackers, which was in any case not known at the time. In his interview with Onet, Bosak did not indicate which “media information” he was referring to.

The far-right leader also said he “had doubts” about the police’s claims that Poles were responsible for the incident. “I have witnessed cases of the police lying,” he explained, before claiming that the authorities “avoid giving nationality statistics” on crimes to hide the growing proportion committed by foreigners.

Main image credit: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.