Polish far-right leaders accuse Poland’s government of staging Russian drone incursion

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Two Polish far-right leaders, Grzegorz Braun and Janusz Korwin-Mikke, have declared that last week’s Russian drone incursion was faked as part of a conspiracy, involving Poland’s own government, to drag the country into the war in Ukraine.

At a press conference, they announced that Korwin-Mikke has filed a notification to prosecutors accusing foreign minister Radosław Sikorski of involvement in the alleged plot. Sikorski responded by calling the pair, who have often been accused of echoing Kremlin propaganda, “Russian lackeys”.

Last week’s violation of Polish airspace by around 20 drones has been attributed to Russia by Poland’s government, opposition-aligned president, as well as the country’s NATO allies.

However, Braun, who recently finished fourth in Poland’s presidential election with 6.3% of the vote, today declared that the incident was “an international provocation, the aim of which was to push Poland deeper into this war”.

Korwin-Mikke, meanwhile, claimed that the Russian Gerbera drones involved in the incident were in fact Ukrainian. He added that they could not have been flown from Russia because their absolute maximum range is 600 kilometres.

He said that he was “absolutely certain” that “the Polish government cooperated in the provocation”. He had therefore reported Sikorski to prosecutors for “collaborating with a foreign country that wants to drag Poland into a war”.

Subsequently, Braun accused Ukraine of repeatedly spreading false war propaganda, including regarding Russian war crimes in Bucha. “Zeleński, unlike Hitler, does not allow international experts and independent witnesses to Bucha” to carry out an international investigation, he declared.

Sharing a screenshot of Braun and Korwin-Mikke’s announcement on social media, Sikorski called them a “pair of Russian lackeys” (using the word onuce, a derogatory term in Poland for people accused of spreading Russian propaganda).

Ever since the Russian drone incursions, Korwin-Mikke has regularly claimed that the incident was actually carried out by Poland and Ukraine then falsely blamed on Moscow.

Last week, President Karol Nawrocki condemned those who were spreading “Russian disinformation, which has been suggesting that the drones attacking Polish airspace are Ukrainian in order to drag Poland into the war”.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, meanwhile, warned that “spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation is an act that harms the Polish state, its security and its citizens”. He added that “stupidity, and even more so political views, should not be treated as a mitigating circumstance”.

Braun and Korwin-Mikke’s recent statements echo earlier rhetoric by both men that has been openly hostile towards Ukraine and often sympathetic towards Russia. In 2022, Braun was the only member of Poland’s parliament not to support a resolution condemning Russia for violating international law.

In December the same year, Korwin-Mikke said he would always “support good relations with Russia, because I’m scared of the growing power in Ukraine and I want to have an ally on the other side of it”. In 2023, he again declared that “Ukraine is a bigger enemy than Russia”.

During this year’s presidential campaign, Braun regularly spoke out against what he called the “Ukrainisation of Poland” (as well as the “Judaisation of Poland”) and tore down a Ukrainian flag from a town hall during one of his events.

Braun and Korwin-Mikke were two of the founding leaders of Confederation (Konfederacja), a far-right group that has seats in the Polish and European parliaments.

However, Korwin-Mikke was expelled from Confederation in 2023 due to his regular inflammatory remarks. Braun was thrown out in January this year for launching a rival presidential campaign to the official Confederation candidate, Sławomir Mentzen, who is a former protege of Korwin-Mikke.

Both men continue to lead their own small parties, while Braun also remains a member of the European Parliament. He is facing multiple charges for a variety of alleged crimes, many relating to his anti-Jewish, anti-Ukrainian and anti-LGBT actions.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

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.