Russian propaganda fuels disinformation about Poland drone incursion

At least 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace on the night of Tuesday, 9 September, to Wednesday, 10 September, causing NATO fighter jets to shoot down a number of them.

This has led to a disinformation campaign emerging online, peddling a pro-Russian narrative and casting doubt over the events.

This war of narratives has been further intensified since Poland’s State Protection Service revealed that it neutralised a drone operating over government buildings in the capital, Warsaw, on Monday, 15 September.

Across social media platforms, pro-Russian accounts have alleged that the damage caused by a drone, which crashed into a house in Wyryki-Wola, a village located in eastern Poland, was in fact due to a prior storm.

On X, one pro-Russian account, which also has a Telegram channel, claimed that the house “was heavily damaged during a storm two months ago and its condition has not changed since then”.

The post, which has been viewed more than 140,000 times, was signed off with “- FRWL” — an acronym which stands for “From Russia with Love.”

Other online users, including a far-right TikTok activist, called the story of the destroyed house “fake news”.

The house’s owners, Alicja and Tomasz Wesolowski, told Reuters that they were watching TV in their living room when their house was hit.

Media initially reported that the house had been impacted by a drone. Local authorities later clarified that could also have been debris falling as the drones were downed by NATO and Polish fighter jets.

Speculation intensified when Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that the Lublin prosecutor’s office had refrained from confirming what had caused the destruction to the house in Wyryki, adding in a statement that “the object has not been identified as a drone or as its fragments at the moment.”

According to Rzeczpospolita, a missile from a Polish F-16 drone, which had been used to shoot down the drone, impacted the house. These reports have not been confirmed by official sources.

Poland’s Security Bureau – which provides aid and support to the Polish President, currently Karol Nawrocki – has pressed the Tusk-led government to “immediately clarify the incident”, adding that “messages” must be “verified and confirmed” in the context of “disinformation and hybrid warfare.”

Although it remains unclear what impacted the house, all evidence points to the direct impact of an object.

Polish authorities have labelled the drone incursion into its airspace as “a deliberate Russian provocation”, aimed at testing NATO’s aerial capabilities.

NATO has not stated whether the incursion was deliberate or not, caveating that “whether or not Russia’s actions were deliberate, Russia violated NATO airspace”.

Poland has rejected United States President Donald Trump’s assertion that the drone incursion “could have been a mistake”.

The Kremlin has responded by accusing Warsaw of spreading “myths” about Poland’s drone incursion, to aggravate “the Ukrainian crisis”—referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

Questions around the might of Gerbera drones

The drone incursion was conducted at least in part with Russian multi-purpose Gerbera drones, according to a Polish army official.

On X, one account that regularly spreads pro-Russian propaganda alleged that Gerbera drones “barely have any weight, they’re from styrofoam and are built to simulate a big drone. They themselves don’t do much damage, just some when they fall down”.

Speaking to Euronews’ verification team, David Bacci, a senior researcher in aerodynamics from the University of Oxford, explained that “Russia uses Gerbera drones because they are cheap and inexpensive to manufacture”.

“You can load these drones with something like 10kg of explosives. They don’t inflict massive damage on tactical and military assets, but they can destroy a civilian house.”

“They can be launched from anywhere by an elastic or pneumatic catapult, which is a kind of device that you can assemble in a truck,” said Bacci.

Drones such as the Gerbera not only saturate air radars, but are also very expensive to deal with.

“You may use a combat aircraft to shoot down a drone; however, a typical air-to-air missile costs between $300,000 (around €254,000) and even $1 million (€850,000). So you are spending this much to shoot something that costs $10,000 to make,” Bacci added.

Fake claims that Ukraine and Poland orchestrated the drone incursion

Another claim circulating online purports that Ukraine coordinated the drone incursion on 10 September with Poland, with online users branding the drones as “false flag” devices.

Polish far-right former MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke took to X to chime in on another pro-Russian narrative, arguing that Gerbera drones were “most probably” launched from “Ukrainian territory”, in an apparent bid to imply that Ukraine was behind the incursion.

To back up his claim, Korwin-Mikke argued that the “maximum range” of Gerbera drones was 600km, in a bid to justify why these drones could not have originated from Russia.

Polish authorities have stated that some of the drones originated from Belarus.

Meanwhile, David Bacci told EuroVerify that “the maximum operative range of Gerbera drones is roughly 600 kilometres, which can go down to even 300 kilometres, depending on how you load them up. The more you load these drones, the less endurance they will have.”

“Many people confuse the operative range with the endurance. The operative range is based on a return distance. So if I tell you that a drone’s operative range is 600km, this means 600km out and 600km back. However, if you launch these drones, but you don’t want them to return, the total range they can travel doubles to 1,200km,” he added.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has rejected claims that Ukraine was behind the drone incursion as disinformation, stating “the information gathered by Poland clearly indicates that the Russian Federation bears full responsibility for the violation of Polish airspace”.

This disinformation fits into a wider narrative which alleges that the drone incursion was staged as part of Poland’s supposed desire to justify sending troops to Ukraine.

Former Polish MEP Korwin-Mikke also alleged that Tusk and Deputy Prime Minister Radosław Sikorski are “striving for a war at all costs”.

Accounts spreading these false claims have also taken advantage of a series of contradictory media reports about Poland and Ukraine’s military cooperation.

On 11 September, Polish media reported that Poland would send military representatives to Ukraine for training on how to combat drones. These claims triggered a brief public backlash, given that only a week prior, Tusk had asserted that Polish troops would not be sent to Ukraine.

But the following day, Poland’s Ministry of Defence clarified Ukrainian and Polish specialists would practice the use of drones and anti-drone systems on Polish territory.

“There is currently increased disinformation activity carried out by Russian and Belarusian services. Its main purpose is to shift responsibility for the violation of Polish airspace to Ukraine and to discredit the actions taken by the Polish military and security services,” stated Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs in a statement.