Russian Influence on the Polish Election: The Kremlin’s Failed Information War

Russ­ian attempts to influ­ence the recent Pol­ish Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion were large­ly unsuc­cess­ful due to strong pub­lic resis­tance. On June 6, 2025, GLOBSEC pub­lished an analy­sis by Jakub Kubś reveal­ing that despite the unprece­dent­ed scale of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence oper­a­tions, includ­ing bot net­works, cyber­at­tacks, and dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, most Krem­lin efforts failed to res­onate with Pol­ish vot­ers who main­tain a strong con­sen­sus against Russ­ian nar­ra­tives. The arti­cle begins:

Less than two weeks before the first round of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Affairs Krzysztof Gawkows­ki stat­ed that Poland was expe­ri­enc­ing an unprece­dent­ed scale of attempts by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion to influ­ence the elec­tion. He point­ed to dis­in­for­ma­tion, cyber­at­tacks and oth­er forms of hybrid threats. ‘Today in Poland, dur­ing every minute of my speech, sev­er­al inci­dents involv­ing crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture were record­ed,’ the min­is­ter said.

Read more: https://www.globsec.org/what-we-do/commentaries/kremlins-double-game-russian-attempts-influence-polands-2025-election

Key Points

• Oper­a­tion Dop­pel­ganger bot net­works cre­at­ed fake “con­cerned cit­i­zens” accounts crit­i­ciz­ing mil­i­tary spend­ing, but failed due to 92% Pol­ish sup­port for defense increases.
• Pro-Putin can­di­date Maciej Maci­ak received exten­sive cov­er­age in Russ­ian state media after defend­ing Putin in debates, but secured only 0.19% of votes.
• GLOBSEC polling shows 86% of Poles con­sid­er Rus­sia a threat while only 4% view the Krem­lin as a strate­gic partner.
• Russ­ian oper­a­tions found more suc­cess exploit­ing divi­sions over Ukrain­ian migra­tion, where Pol­ish sup­port dropped from 93% to 53% since 2022.

Russia’s Influence on Polish Elections: Moscow’s Tactics Threaten Polish Democracy

In the lead-up to the 2025 pres­i­den­tial vote, Poland has faced an unprece­dent­ed surge of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence, with author­i­ties warn­ing of Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that com­bine cyber­at­tacks, dis­in­for­ma­tion, and attempts to manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion. Inves­ti­ga­tions have revealed a Krem­lin-backed net­work of at least 25 indi­vid­u­als in Poland, accused of spread­ing pro-Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da and ampli­fy­ing divi­sive nar­ra­tives designed to under­mine trust in demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. These efforts have includ­ed the use of coor­di­nat­ed dig­i­tal cam­paigns and inau­then­tic social media activ­i­ty to polar­ize vot­ers and dis­rupt the elec­toral process.

Exter­nal mon­i­tor­ing groups have con­firmed that Russia’s tac­tics in Poland mir­ror hybrid oper­a­tions seen across East­ern Europe, such as the deploy­ment of the Dop­pel­ganger net­work and the orches­tra­tion of cyber­at­tacks against crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture. The scale and sophis­ti­ca­tion of these cam­paigns high­light a broad­er strat­e­gy to erode Poland’s pro-EU and pro-Ukraine stance, with offi­cials and inde­pen­dent ana­lysts describ­ing the threat as the most sig­nif­i­cant in the region’s recent history.

Exter­nal References:

1. Poland faces ‘unprece­dent­ed’ Russ­ian inter­fer­ence ahead of pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, min­is­ter says

2. Poland says Rus­sia is try­ing to inter­fere in pres­i­den­tial election

3. Ille­gal Dop­pel­ganger Oper­a­tion: Tar­get­ing the Pol­ish Elections

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.