English-language social media accounts have circulated fabricated videos presented as reports by well-known Western media outlets. Some used Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Saturday address, in which he spoke about Russian bots operating in Poland's information space.
One video impersonated investigative journalism group Bellingcat and claimed that its founder, Eliot Higgins, had established that Tusk's remarks about Russian bots were based on a report fabricated by German intelligence. Bellingcat did not publish such a report, and it did not appear on Higgins's official social media accounts.
Other fabricated videos used the logos and graphics of the BBC, Euronews and Deutsche Welle. One falsely attributed to French journalist Caroline Fourest a claim that Tusk had lost his reputation by blaming Russian bots for events in Poland. Euronews did not publish the video, and Fourest had not commented on the prime minister's address.
The X account “antibot4navalny,” which monitors pro-Russian influence operations, warned about the videos. Impersonating Western media outlets is a characteristic feature of the Russian disinformation operation known as “Matryoshka.”
Other posts have circulated footage purportedly showing a protest on Warsaw's Poniatowski Bridge. English-language posts claimed that 300,000 Polish patriots had taken to the streets to declare that Poland was a Christian country and that the rest of Europe should follow its example.
The footage actually comes from the 2017 Independence March. A similar photograph was taken at the time by Polish Press Agency (PAP) photographer Paweł Supernak. Both the photograph and the videos show a green vehicle moving through the crowd, march leaders wearing orange vests and religious banners depicting Jesus.
Posts featuring the footage and nearly identical captions were shared on X by accounts expressing support for the US MAGA movement. Some of those accounts are operated from Africa.
Asked by PAP about the use of the Constitutional Tribunal dispute to spread disinformation, NASK's Disinformation Analysis Centre said some accounts had used old images to construct emotionally charged narratives. It added that further disinformation narratives about the events were highly likely to emerge in the near future.
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Source: PAP