Polish government’s Russian influence commission wants ex-defence minister investigated for treason

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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.

A commission set up by the government earlier this year to examine Russian influence in Poland has called for prosecutors to investigate Antoni Macierewicz, defence minister under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, for the crime of “diplomatic treason”.

Among other provisional findings announced today by the head of the commission, General Jarosław Stróżyk, were the alleged financing by Poland of Russian influence operations in the US, the damaging of the capabilities of the Polish security services, and a failure to prepare Poland for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“The incidents revealed by the commission testify to the deliberate weakening of Poland’s security, including the potential of the armed forces and security services, and to the weakening of Poland in the international arena, which is in line with Russia’s policy objectives,” said Stróżyk.

However, Macierewicz, who served as defence minister from 2015 to 2018 and is currently deputy leader of PiS, said that he has “nothing to fear” from the commission, while his party colleagues called its findings “political”.

Stróżyk, who is the head of the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW), said that his commission has so far analysed thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of responses from government agencies.

While their work remains ongoing, he said that he has recommended that the materials gathered already be referred to prosecutors to assess whether Macierewicz’s actions meet the legal threshold for diplomatic treason, a crime carrying a prison sentence of up to ten years.

“The formal notice [to prosecutors] in the case of Antoni Macierewicz has not yet been filed. It will be filed in the coming weeks. The application is time-consuming, but I promise it will happen,” said Stróżyk, answering questions from journalists.

As one example of the weakening of Poland’s defence capabilities during Macierwicz’s time leading the ministry, the committee cited Poland’s withdrawal from an international program to acquire air-to-air refuelling aircraft, a decision Stróżyk described as “unfounded, short-sighted and ill-considered.”

The move cost Poland “several million zloty in [already made] contributions” and left it without access to a fleet of tankers now stationed in Cologne, Germany, but which could have been located in Powidz, Poland, claimed the commission.

Stróżyk argued that the withdrawal from the programme reflected Macierewicz’s personal resentment towards European Union partners rather than strategic calculations.

The commission also highlighted the decision to dismantle ten out of 15 regional offices of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) in 2017, attributing this to “ad hoc” decision-making that depleted staff and disrupted agency functions.

“Restoring these capacities won’t be quick or easy, but reversing those policies is essential,” Stróżyk said, pointing to ongoing efforts to rebuild the agency.

The general also noted that the commission found no substantial evidence of government actions in response to US warnings about Russian aggression against Ukraine before its invasion in February 2022. That came at a time when PiS was still in office but Macierewicz no longer led the defence ministry.

“We saw no documentation indicating any significant government preparedness,” Stróżyk said. “We know from media sources that the first US warnings were as early as November 2021. We have not found a trace of discussion in security bodies about this. The first trace is 24 February 2022.”

The commission also claims that Polish state agencies and state-owned companies – such as the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) and Polish Armament Group (PGZ) – spent “millions of dollars…financing suspicious companies working for Russian interests in the US”.

“One example could be the BGR Group [a lobbying firm]…which carried out activities for two Gazprom companies, Alfa Bank and the company dealing with Nord Stream 2,” said Stróżyk.

Another such lobbying firm was Park Strategies, which was founded by former US Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who in the 1990s opposed Poland’s accession to NATO. “If he was supposed to represent Polish interests in the US, I leave it without comment,” said the general.

After today’s announcement, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, declared that, “if Antoni Macierewicz was a Russian agent, he could not have done a better job…I hope that he will finally be locked up”.

However, Macierewicz declared that he has “nothing to fear in this case”.

“The ‘diplomatic betrayal’ consisted in the fact that, thanks to my policy as defence minister, we concluded an alliance with the United States for the first time in Polish history, guaranteeing the presence of the American army in Poland,” he said, quoted by news website wPolityce.

“What was presented today by General Stróżyk can hardly be taken as a serious report,” added Marcin Przydacz, a PiS MP. “From the very beginning, the commission was marked by the sin of politicisation. After all, it was not elected by parliament, but by politicians, by ministers of this government.”

When PiS was in government, it set up its own commission to investigate Russian influence, which was widely criticised in Poland and abroad – including by the EU and US – for being an attempt to discredit Tusk and the then opposition ahead of elections.

The PiS commission issued a report recommending that Tusk and some of his closest allies not be allowed to hold positions responsible for state security. It was disbanded soon after soon afterwards by Tusk’s new ruling coalition.

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: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.