Two articles published on Friday May 31 on the website of the Polish national press agency (Polska Agencja Prasowa, PAP) announcing a partial military mobilization from July 1 were completely false, and the result of a computer hack attributed to the Russia, the Polish government and intelligence services announced.
The articles, published on the news agency’s website, announced that 200,000 people would be forcibly mobilized and sent to Ukraine. Immediately after publication, PAP deleted the two texts, and announced that they had not been written by employees of the news agency.
“These messages about partial mobilization are false,” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski wrote on X early this afternoon. ” An investigation has been opened. Everything points in the direction of a cyberattack and a concerted disinformation operation. » The investigation was entrusted to the ABW, the Polish domestic intelligence service, said Mr. Gawkoski, and the Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, is kept informed in real time of the progress of the investigations.
A “Russian-led” cyberattack
For the Polish government and its intelligence services, there is little doubt about the origin of this alleged hacking. “All indications are that we are facing a Russian-led cyberattack,” Gawkowski said. “The aim is to spread disinformation before the elections and paralyze society. » “Immediate measures were taken following a probable Russian cyberattack against the Polish press agency and the dissemination of disinformation messages on an alleged mobilization in Poland,” wrote Jacek Dobrzynski, spokesperson for the services Polish intelligence service, on the social network
In April, a similar hack hit the website of the Czech public news agency CTK. Two false articles claiming that Czech intelligence services had prevented an attack against the newly elected Slovak President, Peter Pellegrini, had been published.
Like most European countries, Poland is on heightened vigilance, one week before the European elections, against possible attempts to interfere or disrupt the vote – the country is one of the countries traditionally very targeted by pro-Russian disinformation operations. . At the end of March, the Polish services, in conjunction with their Czech counterparts, publicly denounced a Russian disinformation operation centered around the Voice of Europe site, financed by Moscow. In this case, which also includes an important aspect of alleged corruption of assistants to MEPs, the Brussels police carried out a series of searches at the European Parliament on Wednesday.