Russian-language propaganda outlets are spreading a narrative about supposed “Polish partisans” behind recent acts of sabotage on a key rail line to Ukraine, exploiting what one expert described as Poland’s low resistance to manipulation, according to a report published by research foundation Res Futura.
Res Futura, which studies media and online narratives, said that from Sunday Russian-language Telegram channels intensified messages about alleged “partisans in Poland” responsible for incidents on the Warsaw–Dorohusk route.
Between Nov. 15 and 17, an explosive device destroyed a section of track near the village of Mika in central Poland’s Garwolin county, and a train carrying 475 passengers had to brake sharply near the Gołąb station in eastern Lublin province because of damage to the line, the report said.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament on Tuesday that, according to security service findings, the railway incidents were carried out by two Ukrainian citizens who had long cooperated with Russian intelligence.
Despite this, Kremlin-linked outlets built a story about a grassroots “resistance movement” in Poland, allegedly driven by war fatigue and opposition to Tusk’s policies, said Jakub Olchowski of the Propaganda and Disinformation Research Team at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and the Institute of Central Europe.
Olchowski told Polish news agency PAP that such narratives, like other Kremlin-directed themes, are designed both for Russia’s domestic audience and as an “export product” for foreign information spaces, including Poland’s.
According to Res Futura’s analysis, Russian sources described three groups as the supposed “Polish partisans”: Polish citizens opposed to arms deliveries to Ukraine, Ukrainian deserters and refugees infiltrating logistics, and radical political circles including conservative-nationalist or anti-system movements. Their alleged goals were to disrupt military supplies, weaken elite morale and signal rejection of Poland’s Western alliances.
Olchowski said Moscow was encouraged by a coordinated drone and disinformation operation in September that combined kinetic and non-kinetic actions and, in his view, showed that Polish society is highly vulnerable to manipulation. The Kremlin is now trying to repeat that pattern, he added.
He warned that the problem is not only pro-Russian trolls or fringe groups, but the ease with which ordinary users pick up and further spread such content.
The expert said portrayals of a “Polish resistance movement” fit neatly into broader Russian and Belarusian media depictions of Poland, which feature figures such as former Polish judge Tomasz Szmydt as evidence that Warsaw is “rusophobic” and hostile to citizens who favor good relations with Moscow and are “tired” of Ukraine.
Olchowski argued that openly pro-Russian messaging would not sell in Poland, but anti-Ukrainian narratives do, especially when they tap into historical grievances such as the World War Two-era Volhynia massacres. Kremlin propagandists treat slogans like “Volhynia, we remember” as an easy tool, he said, adding that messages blaming Ukrainians for the sabotage were quickly taken up by various groups, “with the Confederation party at the forefront.”
Russian media and Telegram channels have also floated the idea that the railway sabotage was orchestrated by Berlin as revenge for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion, suggesting Germany sought to undermine military supplies to Ukraine.
Res Futura said such messages support a Kremlin storyline about an “intra-European hybrid war” and growing chaos and disunity inside the European Union. Russian outlets link the Polish incidents to earlier attacks on infrastructure in Germany, France and the Czech Republic to argue that Europe is now a victim of turmoil it allegedly created by backing Kyiv.
Everything that undermines Western cohesion, strains bilateral ties and weakens the EU and NATO is in Moscow’s interest, Olchowski said.
He noted that anti-German sentiment in Poland, stoked in part by domestic political actors, offers fertile ground for such narratives. A single false claim about “revenge for Nord Stream 2” lets Russia fuel hostility toward both Germany and Ukraine at once, he added, calling the campaign a carefully planned and professionally executed operation by the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus.
(jh)
Source: PAP