In an interview with the state PAP news agency, Stanisław Żaryn said that Belarus and Russia were "waging information warfare" against Poland, while also seeking to destabilise the situation on the country's borders.
He added that, according to Moscow’s military doctrine, “disinformation and information warfare may be used as part of state aggression against other countries, and as part of military operations.”
Żaryn argued that Russia was using "informational influence" and political tools to aid its strategic objectives of “driving the American presence out of Central Europe" and "effectively undermining the security of NATO’s eastern flank.”
“With a view to this, Russia is employing disinformation activities against Poland, designed to isolate our country on the international stage,” Żaryn said in the interview.
“If our allies adopt the perspective of the Russian opponent, this objective, so dangerous to NATO, will be achieved,” he warned.
The information warfare seeks to portray Poland as responsible for the “creation and escalation” of the migration crisis, Żaryn said.
Senior officials in Moscow and Minsk, including Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, are involved in forging this narrative, he added.
Moreover, Żaryn told the Polish news agency that Russian President Vladimir Putin "recently told Red Cross officials" that Poland was “aggressing against the migrants, breaking the law and European standards,” and suggested that as a result, migrants were "dying on a mass scale" on Polish soil.
The Russian leader "called on the international community to respond," Żaryn said.
In all, “Minsk and Moscow’s propaganda drive is designed to slander Poland internationally, casting it as 'a troublemaker state,' and to try and demonstrate that the policy of the Polish government is creating risks for the whole European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance,” Żaryn was quoted by PAP as saying.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, gov.pl