There are moments in international politics when the loudest confrontation isn’t taking place at a negotiating table or on a frontline, but in the quiet, relentless scroll of social media feeds. In Poland, that moment has arrived in a particularly unsettling form. According to Reuters, in mid-August, Warsaw experienced a striking and coordinated explosion of Russian disinformation aimed at widening the rift between Poland and Ukraine. The timing was no accident. It came right after a very public dispute erupted between the two neighboring countries, and the online fallout was immediate and measurable. Anti-Ukrainian content in Polish across major platforms jumped by more than 250 percent. That number is staggering on its own, but what makes it more concerning is the way it was produced—not as a spontaneous release of public frustration, but as a deliberately engineered information campaign designed to make it look as if ordinary Poles were turning against their Ukrainian neighbors. The story isn’t simply about trolls or fake accounts. It’s about a real relationship, burdened by history, suddenly being weaponized in real time.
For Polish Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Paweł Olszewski, what happened was unmistakable. He described Russian disinformation as literally “exploding” on social media and on official Russian media platforms after the dispute began. The digital space became a battlefield. The Polish Institute of International Affairs, a prominent research body, tracked the surge across X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and the pattern was clear: this was not random. A significant portion of the content was being generated by bot farms, designed to create the illusion that Polish society was seething with widespread anti-Ukrainian anger. The bots worked to amplify certain themes, repeat them until they seemed like common sense, and make them look entirely bottom-up and organic. Some of these narratives were eventually picked up by Polish media, which added another layer of legitimacy to stories that had their roots in Russian influence operations. Olszewski’s remark that this flow of disinformation “fell on receptive ground” is telling. It acknowledges that the campaign didn’t have to invent all of its fuel from scratch. It found cracks in the emotional landscape of Polish society—anxieties, grievances, historical memories, and fatigue—and used them as entry points.
This marks a shift in how Russian information warfare operates. In the past, many Russian disinformation campaigns relied on outlandish fabrications that were easy to debunk. They spread absurd claims that, while catchy, could be identified and removed relatively quickly by fact-checkers and platform moderators. But the current approach is far more dangerous precisely because it is rooted in reality. Instead of inventing completely false stories, Russian actors took real controversial issues and then distorted, exaggerated, and amplified them to serve a larger political narrative. The manipulation is much harder to identify and remove because the underlying events actually happened. There are real historical disputes between Poland and Ukraine, particularly around World War II. There is genuine public frustration in Poland about the arrival and presence of Ukrainian refugees, about strained public services, and about the economic and social pressures that come with hosting millions of displaced people. Disinformation did not create these emotions. But by selecting some of them, stripping away nuance, and then broadcasting them with the force of an algorithm, Russian influence networks turned complex human difficulties into simple, angry stories. This is the subtle art of modern disinformation: it doesn’t need to lie. It just needs to choose a side of the truth that hurts the most.
As expected, Moscow denied any involvement. The Russian Embassy in Warsaw called the allegations “unfounded” and repeated the familiar refrain that Russia “does not interfere in relations between other states.” The words feel almost scripted by now, and for many observers they are hard to take seriously, given the overwhelming evidence of Russian information operations across Europe and the world. Still, the denial serves a purpose. It provides cover for platforms and audiences that may want to dismiss the warnings. It also helps grease the wheels of the disinformation machine by creating a kind of narrative whiplash: first, a furious campaign to inflame tensions, then an official insistence that none of it is happening. That combination can be exhausting and disorienting, especially for ordinary people who are just trying to make sense of what they see online. For many Poles, though, the denial rings hollow. They remember how quickly the same playbook was used in the past to interfere in elections, to stir up panic about migration, and to sow distrust in democratic institutions. The campaign around the Polish-Ukrainian dispute is not an exception. It is, in many ways, the same old tactic dressed in new digital clothes.
The emotions that Russian disinformation is exploiting are not abstract. They are tied to specific and painful chapters in history. The current tension between Warsaw and Kyiv flared up in late May, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to give an honorary name, “Heroes of the UPA,” to one of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ special units. For Poland, that name is a wound. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known by its Ukrainian acronym UPA, is tied to the Volyn tragedy of 1943–1945, when its forces carried out mass killings of Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine. Poland officially recognizes this atrocity as genocide against the Polish population, and the memory is still raw, carried by families, historians, and national consciousness. Warsaw’s reaction was immediate and pointed. Polish President Karol Nawrocki went as far as stripping Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, one of the highest honors Poland can bestow. It was an extraordinary gesture, a diplomatic signal that historical memory matters and that words have consequences. The situation was further complicated when former Ukrainian presidents later declined to accept the same award, a move that underscored just how deep the divide had become, not just between two governments, but between two national narratives trying to coexist.
And yet, amid all the anger, amplification, and manipulation, there is another story that deserves to be told—a story of restraint and shared interest. Even as the digital noise rose, public opinion polling in Poland continued to show a striking level of maturity. Seventy-five percent of Poles said they favored security cooperation with Ukraine against Russia over historical disputes. That is a powerful reminder that the most visible online outbursts are not always an accurate reflection of a society’s deeper instincts. Most Poles understand that Russia, not Ukraine, is the existential threat. They understand that whatever the historical reckoning between Warsaw and Kyiv, the two nations are now bound together by survival. Russian disinformation does not need to eliminate that understanding overnight. It only needs to wear it down, bit by bit, until trust is replaced by suspicion and solidarity is replaced by fatigue. The danger is not that a single viral post will change people’s minds. The danger is that the constant drip of distorted narratives, combined with real frustrations, will slowly erode the foundation of one of Europe’s most important alliances. In the end, the fight against disinformation is not just about flagging bad content or punishing bot networks. It is about holding onto the human capacity to see complexity, to forgive history without forgetting it, and to recognize that our greatest strength lies not in the stories we tell about each other, but in the future we can still build together.