Russia has intensified its information campaign against Ukraine ahead of Poland’s Independence Day, seeking to exploit strains between Warsaw and Kyiv and cultivate the impression that Polish public support for its eastern neighbour is beginning to fracture, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.
The Ukrainian agency said the Russian-linked disinformation network Pravda, also known as Portal Kombat, was circulating narratives portraying Polish-Ukrainian relations as having deteriorated sharply. The messages promote claims of a collapse in bilateral friendship, rising xenophobia towards Ukrainians in Poland and growing public fatigue with support for Kyiv.
According to the agency, the campaign seeks to turn disagreements between the neighbouring countries into evidence of a much broader political rupture — one that could weaken international backing for Ukraine as its war with Russia continues.
The allegations highlight a central feature of Moscow’s confrontation with Kyiv: the battle for European support is being fought not only through military operations and diplomatic pressure, but also through attempts to shape how European societies perceive the costs and consequences of the war.
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The Center for Countering Disinformation said the campaign was part of a systematic Russian effort to amplify divisions between partner countries and create an exaggerated impression of hostility. By presenting disputes as evidence that solidarity with Ukraine is collapsing, the Kremlin seeks to undermine confidence in the durability of European support, the agency argued.
Poland’s Independence Day provides a politically sensitive moment for such messaging. Questions of national identity, historical memory and relations with neighbouring states carry particular significance in Poland, where support for Ukraine has coexisted with disagreements over history and the practical consequences of the war.
The alleged operation also draws on tensions that have become more visible in diplomatic relations between Warsaw and Kyiv.
Piotr Łukasiewicz, Poland’s chargé d’affaires in Ukraine, said relations between the two countries had moved in 2026 from one of their strongest periods to one of their weakest.
He attributed part of the deterioration to disputes over shared history, particularly the activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the legacy of Stepan Bandera, a prominent figure in the Ukrainian nationalist movement of the 20th century.
These historical disputes are politically consequential because the two countries interpret parts of their shared past differently. Episodes associated with Ukrainian nationalist movements remain deeply contentious in Poland, while their place in Ukraine’s national historical narrative is shaped by a different experience of national struggle and Soviet domination.
Such disagreements can complicate an otherwise strategically important partnership. Poland has been a key neighbour and supporter of Ukraine, while Kyiv’s pursuit of European Union membership gives the relationship an additional institutional dimension.
Łukasiewicz nevertheless stressed that historical debates were not currently part of negotiations over Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
That distinction matters. Diplomatic friction over historical memory does not, by itself, establish that Poland is abandoning support for Ukraine or that the two governments’ broader strategic interests have fundamentally diverged.
Nor do the claims identified by the Ukrainian agency establish that Polish society has turned decisively against Kyiv. The allegations concern messages being circulated within Poland’s information environment, rather than independently verified evidence of a wholesale collapse in public support.
The strategic risk, according to the Ukrainian assessment, lies in the gap between genuine disagreements and the sweeping conclusions that disinformation networks seek to draw from them.
A dispute over historical responsibility can be presented as proof that a partnership has failed. Criticism of government policy can be recast as widespread hostility towards Ukrainians. Individual disagreements can be amplified until they appear to represent an irreversible national shift.
The objective is not necessarily to invent every grievance, but to magnify existing divisions, strip them of context and make cooperation appear increasingly untenable.
For Moscow, that approach offers a potential means of weakening Ukraine’s international position without achieving a comparable result on the battlefield. If European governments and public’s become less willing to sustain political, financial or military support for Kyiv, Russia could gain strategic room for manoeuvre.
The challenge for Warsaw and Kyiv is therefore twofold: manage their genuine disputes without allowing them to overwhelm areas of common interest, while ensuring that claims circulating online are assessed against verifiable evidence rather than repetition.
The Ukrainian agency’s warning does not prove that Russia has succeeded in changing Polish public opinion. It does, however, underline the importance Moscow appears to attach to the political cohesion of Ukraine’s European partners.
The broader contest is over whether disagreements between allies remain manageable differences — or are transformed into evidence that the alliance itself is coming apart.
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