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The events in Belarus have triggered yet another wave of the Russian disinformation attacks where Poland is labelled as lacking credibility and posing a threat in Europe. In general, the narratives spread by both Russian and Belarusian mouthpieces revolve around denigrating Poland on the international arena and feeding the lie about its alleged territorial claims.

More specifically, the information warfare efforts against Poland undertaken by the Kremlin and the regime in Minsk have mainly exploited the following narratives:

PATTERN No. 1

Poland and NATO are planning a military intervention in Belarus

1. Just a day after Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin met in Sochi, a lengthy article was posted on the Russian-language website of the Belarusian MoD. It was an op-ed by maj. gen. Oleg Voinov, Chief of the International Military Cooperation Department. In his op-ed, this high-ranking Belarusian military officer accused NATO – Lithuania and Poland in particular – of building up military and training potential that posed a threat to Belarus just at the country’s borders. He noted that as a potential aggressor NATO must take into account that its actions may trigger a military response set forth in the agreements pertaining to the Union State of Russia and Belarus and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

2. Viktor Baranets, a contributor for the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, posted threats against NATO members. In an op-ed he implied that the Alliance was poised to attack Belarus and made slanderous suggestions that the current movements of the allied forces might be a prelude for such an invasion. According to Baranets, who is also an ex-military, Belarus’ only hope was Russia, as the Kremlin’s potential retaliation would not only stop the marching NATO troops, but also turn Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw and Brussels into “piles of rubble”.

3. Anatoly Wasserman, a journalist who amplifies the Kremlin’s narratives, made a bogus suggestion that behind Poland’s readiness to help the persecuted Belarusians are only its imperial plans. According to Wasserman, “it is clear to everybody that Poland wants its former property back”, by which he meant a part of territory of Belarus. He also pushed a narrative that there were some hidden interests behind Poland’s readiness the help Belarus, and that Warsaw’s helping hand would eventually turn out to be a hand “with poison on it.”

 

4. The propaganda messages pushed by the Kremlin and Minsk are not only targeted at Russian, Belarusian-, and Polish-speaking audiences. Therefore, a large portion of the propagandized content is also published in English with the aim to reach out to the public opinion in the West. This is exactly the case of Adomas Abromaitis whose pieces are often posted to or picked up by pro-Russian, yet English-language outlets. In one of such articles, Abromaitis made bogus suggestions that in view of its history, Poland had territorial claims with regards to neighbouring countries, especially Lithuania, but also Belarus. The work by Abromaitis is a model example of how the history of Poland can be exploited to justify any narratives about its alleged hostility to Belarus.

 

5. A news website actively engaged in amplifying Russian propaganda pushed a narrative that Poland’s alleged grab at the sovereignty of Belarus was a job done “by the order” of the U.S. At the same time it was implied that Poland – a country facing a democracy, human rights protection and citizen rights problem – “meddles in the affairs of a sovereign Belarus, because it feels the need to give the Belarusians independence the Ukraine-style.” Another suggestion was that the Polish politicians were used by the U.S. to carry out a “hostile take-over of Belarus.”

 

 

6. A pro-Russian news website – one of the Kremlin’s most notorious mouthpieces – posted an article suggesting that “the Polish war instigators” were trying to drag Belarus to NATO – by force and against the will of the people.

 

7. A Russian-language website Tsargrad posted an op-ed by M. Bashirov in which the author warned that Minsk should be ready for “a possible intrusion into the territory of Belarus from Poland and the Baltic States.” A suggestion was made that US forces stationed in the region, and in Poland in particular, posed a threat.

 

8. A pro-Russian website amplified a propagandized message of the regime in Belarus about an alleged military threat posed by NATO, and its particular members: Poland, Lithuania and Czech Republic. In an article posted on the website it was suggested that Minsk had fallen victim to an unprecedented pressure with the use of diplomatic and political-economic pressure. In the text the Belarusian defence minister Viktor Khrenin was cited as saying that “destructive forces propelled by the authorities in Poland, Lithuania and Czech Republic have attempted to carry out an unconstitutional shift of power in Belarus.”

 

9. In yet another attempt to reach out to western audiences, the Baltic Word – an all-English website notorious for pushing anti-NATO and anti-West narratives – posted an article which accused the Alliance of escalating tensions in the region. The text implied that by holding a series of military exercises in Poland and in the Baltic States, NATO intentionally provoked Belarus and Russia. There was also a warning that such an escalatory conduct could easily trigger an uncontrollable turn of events.

 

Pushing the aforementioned narratives aimed to:

• escalate tensions around the events in Belarus;
• threaten the audiences with an armed conflict;
• stir up fear among the Poles and undermine their confidence in the decision-makers;
• question the credibility of Poland on the international arena;
• portray Poland as posing a threat to peace in Europe;
• create hostility towards the West, including Poland and Lithuania, among the public opinion in Belarus and Russia.

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PATTERN No. 2

Poland meddles in the internal affairs of Belarus/Poland inspires the protests

1. Rotislav Ishchenko, a man notorious for his anti-Polish sentiment, reiterated a narrative that the current unrest in Belarus had been planned, sparked and managed by Poland. He also claimed that everything that had happened to date only solidified the Russian influence in Belarus.

Since the very beginning of the protests in Belarus Russian propaganda has been doing its utmost to portray Poland as a country that inspires the unrest, while the opposition has been portrayed as puppets of external powers. The official narratives pushed by the Kremlin sound alike.

 

 

2. A news website actively engaged in Russia’s information warfare activities stepped up its efforts to exert a pressure on the Catholics living in Belarus. A text posted on the website warned that the Catholics could get involved in the next phase of a coup against the regime in Minsk. A similar narrative was also amplified by the Union of Orthodox Journalists with ties to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Union stated that the Belarusian Catholics were encouraging other citizens to stand up against Lukashenko. To substantiate such accusations both outlets used a social media post by an alleged catholic priest who having learned that the Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz would not be allowed to enter Belarus wrote: “take to the streets with love in your hearts and with a pitchfork in your hands!” In his comment to this quote a Belarusian blogger A. Wozniesienski wrote: “we must be prepared for a scenario in which the Catholics will not only try to trigger a new wave of protests, but also to take it to another level – one that involves the use of force.”

 

3. During a presser, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Poland of violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Belarus. She also called on Poland to respect the international law.

In the Russian propaganda texts it is often implied that the Polish President has announced an intervention in Belarus and that Poland is preparing for such an action.

 

4. A news website notorious for its eagerness in pushing the Russian disinformation put the blame for the alleged “aggressive” behaviour of the protesters in Belarus on Poland. More specifically, it suggested that the Belarusian media financed by Poland encouraged the people on the streets to clash with the riot police. “Polands’ provocateurs who controls the NEXTA channel, published the data of police officers and the soldiers of the internal armed forces as well their families and called to kill the police officers.” (SIC for the entire quote).

 

5. A pro-Russian website picked up a widespread narrative that Poland escalated tensions in Belarus. In an op-ed posted on this outlet in was suggested that Poland was not only meddling in the internal situation of Belarus, but also that it destroyed “everything that has virtues of democracy.” Furthermore, Poland was accused of “escalating the existing tension between the state and the society, which may increase the body count (…), and our politicians would end up having an innocent blood on their hands.”

 

 

6. A website actively engaged in information warfare efforts against Poland posted an opinion by a member of the Russian State Duma Irek Zinnurov. He claimed that the unrest in Belarus was the result of the influence Poland exerted on the Belarusian youth. In his opinion Polish higher education institutions were “a bad influence.”

 

 

Pushing the aforementioned narratives aimed to:

• stir up anti-Polish sentiment in Belarus;
• provide evidence of a foreign footprint of the protests;
• portray Poland as being hostile to Belarus;
• justify the brutality of the Minsk regime in dealing with the opposition.

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PATTERN No. 3

Denigrating Poland on the international arena

1. The propaganda campaigns targeted against Poland also aim to stir up fear among the Poles and pit them against their own government. In such an attempt, a website that amplifies the Russian disinformation warned that the Polish authorities were using the events in Belarus to “cover” their failure to deal with a dramatic situation in their country. It was suggested that “the government underestimates every single problem of the society and focuses on the internal matters of Belarus.” What is more, according to this narrative “the Polish government cares more about pursuing its political agenda than about the welfare of its nation.”

 

2. It is Russian propaganda’s characteristic feature to exploit radical opinions expressed by some members of the public opinion in Poland to attack us. That was the case of a Twitter post by T. Sommer about Grodno. It was eagerly picked up and used to show that Poland was aggressive to Belarus. Exploiting such marginal opinions and making them appear as mainstream ones or even official ones is a tactic widely used by Russia in its information warfare activities against Poland and the West.

 

3. Stanisław Stremidłowski, a contributor for the Kremlin’s mouthpiece REGNUM News Agency, claimed in an op-ed that Poland was letting Belarus outplay it and that Warsaw was wasting an opportunity to strengthen its position on the international arena. The said op-ed was an attempt to pressure Poland to pursue a more pro-Russian agenda regardless of the Kremlin’s hostile posture. According to Stremidłowski, Warsaw should realize it may benefit from taking the role of a stabilizing force of EU-Russia-China relations. Another propaganda claim he made was that the politics of the current government of Poland was “soaked in anti-Russian sentiment.” Stremidłowski concluded his piece with a threat that Poland risked vanishing from the world map as it had done in 1939 when the then authorities had been “unable to develop a competent foreign policy, which was made up for by Poland’s neighbours.”

4. The President of Belarus exploited disinformation about Poland with regard to the poisoning of A. Navalny. The fake news he had spread was eagerly picked up by the pro-Russian media. Within this campaign of lies every now and then details of an alleged joint Polish-German “conspiracy” would emerge. A. Lukashenko made repeated attempts to use the authority of Poland and Germany to whitewash the responsibility of Russia for the attempt at the life of Navalny. Lukashenko went as far as announcing he would reveal “new, sensational” details of an alleged telephone call between the two capitals, which was of course reported by a Russian propaganda website.

 

5. A Belarusian state-controlled information agency suggested that the Polish Ambassador had illegally helped a member of the opposition-led Coordination Council Pawel Latushko cross the Polish-Belarusian border. This fake news was immediately dismissed by the Polish Foreign Ministry. By pushing such “news” the media in Belarus attempted to denigrate Poland on the international arena. As stressed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, it was an attempt by the authorities in Belarus to put the blame for their failure to engage in a dialogue with their own society on Poland.

 

Pushing the aforementioned narratives aimed to:

• undermine the credibility and reliability of Poland and other NATO members;
• undermine the image of Poland on the international arena;
• sow the information chaos in Poland and other allied countries;
• pit the Polish society against its own authorities.

During the ongoing political crisis in Belarus the propaganda machines of the Kremlin and Minsk have stepped up their efforts against Poland. To fulfil their political goals both regimes made an extensive use of information warfare tools, propaganda, and disinformation. This is how once again Poland has been targeted with an organized and systemic campaign as part of a wider information offensive against the West.

 

Spokesman for Poland’s Minister-Special Services Coordinator