Wojciech Kotowicz, a political scientist at the University of Warmia and Mazury in the northeastern city of Olsztyn, said that Russia’s disinformation machine moved within hours to reframe a 2025 drone incident as a Polish “provocation."
Kotowicz pointed to the night of September 9-10, 2025, when Russian drones violated Polish airspace during a mass attack on Ukraine.
He said the episode showed “how Russian disinformation works in real time,” turning events into an opportunity to deflect attention from Russia’s aggression.
“Within literally hours of confirmation” of the airspace violation, Russian state media, troll farms and coordinated bot networks launched a campaign “aimed at shifting responsibility and portraying Poland as escalating the conflict,” Kotowicz said.
He described two core storylines pushed by pro-Kremlin outlets.
The first suggested the drone may have been Ukrainian and that Poland and Western allies were falsely labeling it Russian to justify escalation and draw NATO into direct conflict with Moscow.
Kotowicz called the claim especially cynical given that Russia was carrying out a large-scale missile and drone strike on Ukrainian civilian housing and infrastructure at the time.
A second narrative, which Kotowicz described as “absurd but effectively spread,” argued that even if the drone was Russian, its presence over Poland was merely a technical error or an accidental deviation.
In that framing, Poland’s response, including heightened defensive readiness and monitoring, was cast as “hysterical” and “provocative,” he said.
Kotowicz said such messaging is part of a broader pattern in which “every violation of Polish airspace, every border incident, every tension in Polish-Russian relations” is used to build a portrayal of Poland as an “aggressor” and “provocateur.”
“The goal is not to convince all Poles to take a pro-Russian position,” he said, and added that Moscow's goals are instead to sow “confusion,” weaken trust in official information, deepen existing political divisions, and reduce sense of national unity in the face of security threats.
He said recurring themes in Russian propaganda include portraying Poland as Russophobic and lacking sovereignty, presenting it as a tool of the United States, and promoting allegations that Warsaw wants to annex western Ukraine to drive a wedge between Poles and Ukrainians.
Other Russian lies attempt to paint Poland as suffering an economic crisis blamed solely on support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, while historical issues are used to inflame tensions with neighbors and depict Poland as revisionist, he said.
Kotowicz said these messages are targeted at specific audiences, from farmers and business owners to nationalist groups, with the aim of discrediting Poland as a regional leader in Eastern Europe and a credible NATO partner.
His remarks drew on a research project conducted at the University of Warmia and Mazury last year, titled “The impact of Russian disinformation on shaping public opinion in Eastern European countries: analysis and countermeasures.”
Researchers have frequently stated that Russia's budget for fueling its propaganda machine is orders of magnitude greater than during Soviet times, while the internet, smartphones and social media provide easy and efficient ways to reach millions of individuals almost instantly.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP