Global Deolformation Unit, BBC World ServiceBBC
In a settlement in the woods, two men stand behind a row of wooden sticks filled with pictures of their faces.
The portraits include US President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire Elon Musk. They hang a US flag in front of them.
The man is wearing camouflage clothes with blue markings. This is the colour that Ukrainian soldiers often wear to identify them on the battlefield.
“We don’t need an alliance like you,” one of the men tells the Ukrainians as he sets the flag and portrait on fire.
However, the video, which has been shared with thousands of subscribers of Polish telegram channels, is being staged. The uniforms are of general camouflage and can be easily purchased online, but Ukrainian words are pronounced very wrongly and spoken with a strong Russian accent.
It is shared by Telegram Channel Polska Grupa InformacyJna, one of 22 Polish channels, and identifies the BBC as sharing various forms of pro-Russian disformation and propaganda.
The misleading video appears to show Ukrainian soldiers furious at US policy
Telegram is not widely used in Poland, but experts say that false messages about it will be amplified among extremist groups and then spread to other platforms with a larger reach.
22 channels present themselves primarily as Polish news and information services. While promising “fair” news, the two claims are “fair.” One channel charges “Reliable and verified information is hidden from the public,” while another has the slogan “Where the truth is needed.”
Most of them quote or replicate content from Russian state media, such as RT and Sputnik, which are banned in the European Union due to the manipulation of information and spreading propaganda. Poland is a member of the EU.
Channels often quote or link figures and supporters of the Russian regime. President Vladimir Putin, vice-president of the National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharov, a television presenter for Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, and a pro-Russian war commentator known as “Z-Bloggers” are all cited.
Some posts about these channels contain totally false information. For example, images posted by channel UKR Leaks_PL show figures of military clothing applying fake blood to people, implying that the 2022 Russian military did not kill hundreds of Ukrainians.
Some channels often refer to Ukrainian leaders and soldiers as “Nazis.” In one post, Infodefensepoland calls Kyiv’s government a “Nazi regime” and claims it is “controlled by the United States” in the West.
ukr leaks_pl
ukr leaks_pl shared this post with an image showing fake blood being applied to people and was captioned “How the ‘bucha victim’ was prepared” – meaning that a well-documented murder did not happen
Often, a mixture of true and false information is shared or the channel omits important information to create a misleading impression. On June 17, for example, Russia made its most deadly attack on Kiev in a few months, crashing into a residential building, killing at least 28 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.
More than half of the channel ignores the incident completely, some of which emphasize the progress of Russian military forces in Ukraine. Several others that reflect the Kremlin story blamed Ukraine on its victims, claiming that the Russian attacks targeted only military sites.
Quotes and reposts
By analyzing telegram data, the BBC discovered that many channels appeared in 2022 around the time of the full-scale invasion of Russian Ukraine.
At least three were published in Russian before being rebranded as Polish.
Telegram data reveals that most of the 22 channels frequently cite, repost, or mention each other. In 2022 and 2023, this included a shared list called “Good Sources for Polish Telegram,” encouraging followers to subscribe.
Poland has been a key player in alliances of countries supporting Ukraine since the Russian invasion, leading the way in which military aid and equipment was sent in the early months.
Wanting to avoid becoming a target for Russian attacks, Poland has become an increasingly prominent defence partner of the European Union and NATO, gaining around 1 million Ukrainian refugees since 2022.
Telegram “Start Point”
Since 2022, Russia’s disinformation and impact operations have become “a consistent element of Polish digital infosphere,” says Aleksy Szymkiewicz of Polish fact-checking organization Demagog.
He says the telegram serves as a “start.”
“False or manipulative claims are posted first. Then it spreads to a larger platform like X and goes from X to a discussion in, say, Facebook groups.”
According to Szymkiewicz, these pro-Russian telegram channels aim to block support for Ukraine, polarize public opinion and drive wedges between Polish and Ukrainian societies.
Poland is currently showing signs of fatigue against refugees, in part driven by anti-urein propaganda, he says.
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Experts say anti-Uraine stories are common in several channels and may have an impact on support for Polish refugees
Some of the messages circulating on the channel are overtly pro-Lucian or anti-Uraine, while others are more subtle.
For example, a recent post suggests that rising military spending in EU countries seeking to counter what is considered a threat from Russia has driven citizens, including Poles, into poverty.
Other common narratives use unfounded generalizations about Ukrainian refugees and portray them as offensive, violation of the law, and drainage ditches in the host country.
Szymkiewicz gives these “playing with real fear” messages by exploiting existing economic and cultural insecurities within Polish society.
Philip Gwowac, a senior analyst at the Nask National Institute in Warsaw, says Poland, which has been in the realm of Soviet influence for decades, has had a “strong historical resentment to Russia.”
This means “explicitly the Pro-Russian message doesn’t work,” and Pro-Russian actors sometimes “push the Pro-Kremlin story along with far-right content, conspiracy theories, etc.”
Telegram, he says, is the “ideal platform” for this, explaining it has a huge impact among the far-right community and conspiracy theorists.
Who is behind the channel?
The identity behind most channels remains unknown, but experts say there are indications of connections with Russia and its allies, Belarus. Gwawatts said the public era of many channels suggests that they follow a shift-based posting schedule that follows Moscow’s working hours.
UKR Leaks_PL is part of the wider UKR Leaks group. It is a multilingual web of telegram channels and associated platforms run by Vasily Prozorov, a former Ukrainian security services executive who switched sides to work with Russia.
Infodefensepoland is part of the Infodefense group, which operates in over 30 languages and links to Yury Podolyaka, a controversial pro-Kremlin blogger from Ukraine. He is currently in Russia and has been declared absent by a Ukrainian court in cooperation with Moscow.
The channel told the BBC it has more than 500 volunteers around the world. “There are many people in the world that supports Russia. They are helping us. Yuri Podraica is one of them,” it said.
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Kiev apartment buildings attacked by Russia on June 17 – Some channels claim that Moscow has accused only of targeting military facilities and killing Ukraine
Another channel, Pravda PL, is part of the Pravda Group. This is a large international network of Pro Kremlin news websites and social media pages.
Viginum, a state agency to tackle the French state agency, says it is linked to a Russian IT company based in Crimea under Russian occupation.
According to NewsGuard, the company that evaluates news and information reliability – Pravda, spreading content so widely that it “infects” AI chatbot responses.
NewsGuard tested 10 chatbots with sample of fake stories shared on Pravda. It says that while they sometimes repeatedly and cited misinformation, it also raises doubts about it.
Pravda and ukr_leaks did not respond to BBC requests for comments.
Polska Grupa Informacyjna, the channel that shared a video of the US portrait being burned, shares a mix of content that includes something that gives a Ukrainian perspective. It told the BBC it was an “independent news channel” that it strongly rejected the claim that its “first principle is fairness” and promoted the Pro Kremlin narrative.
He said content on the channel could be shared “as an example of controversial material circulating across the web without approval or evaluation from editorial staff.” Materials may be removed or corrected if they are found to be incorrect.
Szymkiewicz says he is concerned about the spread of pro-Lucia’s disinformation on Telegram, as content from national media sources such as RT and Sputnik can continue to exist in the Polish media landscape.
“This kind of content is often misled, manipulated, or fully manufactured,” he says.
He added that the anti-Uchina post “justifies and entrenches the perspective and story of the Russian regime in public discourse in Poland.”
BBC World Services will launch a new language service at BBC News Polska on Tuesday. It is the first new language service from the BBC since March 2018, bringing impartial and reliable global journalism to Polish-speaking audiences, including original reports from across Europe. This is the first BBC language service to use AI translation technology. All translations have human editorial supervision and are clearly labelled.
