Executive Summary
Poland is NATO's largest eastern member and the principal logistical corridor for Western military support to Ukraine. Moscow is unlikely to reverse Warsaw's foreign policy directly. Its more realistic current objective is to raise the domestic cost of supporting Kyiv and sustaining Poland's own resilience and security by intensifying disputes over refugees, historical memory, sovereignty, the European Union, and the risk of escalation.
According to EK Strategic Communications Center, operations targeting Poland involve all key Kremlin institutions. Within the Presidential Administration, they are overseen by Putin's aide Yury Ushakov, reportedly being considered as a potential successor to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, together with Igor Neverov's Foreign Policy Directorate and Tatyana Matveyeva's Directorate for the Development of Information and Communication Technology and Communication Infrastructure. Under the Presidential Administration's current, likely temporary operating model, the European portfolio is also partly handled by Sergey Kiriyenko, his Domestic Policy Directorate team, and structures reporting to him, including Vadim Titov's Directorate for Strategic Partnership and Cooperation. Together, these bodies form the Presidential Administration's core mechanism for interference in other countries' political affairs.
Another important aspect of the Presidential Administration's current structure is the return of former PA official Inal Ardzinba, who has been appointed to Titov's new directorate. From 2014 to 2017, Ardzinba served as the Presidential Administration's point of contact for political consultant Sargis Mirzakhanyan, who was in direct contact with former Polish MP Mateusz Piskorski, later charged in Poland with espionage. Ardzinba's return to the Presidential Administration does not, in itself, confirm that he has again been assigned the Poland portfolio. However, his historical connections are likely to be utilized.
Rossotrudnichestvo, led by Igor Chaika, also partly falls within Kiriyenko's sphere of influence. Their joint work on interference in Moldova's 2025 elections has helped Chaika secure his current position. In parallel, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) and Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) conduct operations targeting Poland, a key NATO country near Russia's borders, through their own contractor networks.
The model combines physical disruption with cumulative information pressure. The November 2025 railway sabotage was attributed by Polish prosecutors to Russian intelligence, while Ukrainian officials linked it to GRU Unit 29155 (1), (2). Because the immediate perpetrators were Ukrainian nationals, aligned networks could redirect suspicion toward Ukraine; monitoring cited by the Kyiv Post found that 42% of online reactions discussing the incident blamed Ukraine (3). In parallel, Kremlin-linked Storm-1516, Matryoshka and the Pravda Network generate, fabricate and repeat polarizing claims that local media and social platforms detach from their Russian origin.
Within this environment, Myśl Polska emerges as the key domestic hub identified in this report, with former Polish MP Mateusz Piskorski serving as the principal connector across its different layers. Myśl Polska functions not only as a publication but as an organizing platform. Piskorski connects its editorial output to Wbrew Cenzurze, the Clubs of Polish Thought, the Andrzej Lepper Foundation for Civil Liberties, veterans' and commemorative organizations, international partner networks, and Grzegorz Braun's far-right Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (KKP). The network has fifteen regional coordinators, recurring mobilization across at least twenty cities, a national media audience, legal fundraising infrastructure, and cross-border contacts (4), (5), (6). Through Piskorski and his closest associates, contemporary activity also connects to earlier Russian-linked influence structures, resource channels and ideological platforms involving the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis, Sargis Mirzakhanyan's network, the Gorchakov Foundation, PravFond and the International Russophile Movement. KKP provides a plausible route into Polish parliamentary politics.
The evidence does not establish direct Kremlin control over every actor or organization described in the report. It supports a narrower assessment: figures linked to earlier Russian influence operations have rebuilt media, regional, and political capacity inside genuine Polish anti-Ukrainian, Eurosceptic and anti-establishment constituencies. Myśl Polska is the system's main conversion point:
Russian-aligned themes become Polish grievances, audiences become organized constituencies, and activist capacity gains political access ahead of the 2027 elections.
Poland As A Strategic Target
Poland's role as NATO's largest eastern member and a principal logistics corridor for Ukraine makes it both difficult and important for Moscow to influence. Reversing Warsaw's foreign policy is unlikely in the near term, so Russian operations raise its domestic cost by exploiting polarization over refugees, public services, historical memory, sovereignty, the EU, and relations with the United States. This information pressure accompanies a broader hostile campaign: the EU has denounced Russia's malicious cyber ecosystem, while Polish authorities have attributed significant cyber incidents to Russian services (7), (8).
The November 2025 sabotage of the Lublin-Warsaw railway shows how physical and information operations can reinforce one another. Polish prosecutors stated that Russian intelligence organized the attack through Ukrainian nationals; Ukrainian officials attributed its planning to GRU Unit 29155 (9), (10). Before the chain of command was established publicly, pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian networks promoted Ukrainian responsibility. Monitoring cited by the Kyiv Post found that 42% of online reactions discussing the incident blamed Ukraine (11). This was not a representative poll, but it demonstrated the value of early narrative capture: one operation could disrupt infrastructure, deepen suspicion of Ukrainians, and make attribution to Moscow politically contested.
The same cumulative model shaped the 2026 dispute over the Ukrainian military title "Heroes of the UPA." Russian and Russia-aligned outlets did not create Poland's historical grievance; they amplified its most polarizing interpretation. Monitoring cited by StopFake identified 2,252 publications in May and June 2026, with a potential reach of 34.9 million views, while officials from both sides warned that the Kremlin would seek to use the case to deepen tensions between Ukraine and Poland, framing Ukraine as hostile to Polish memory and unfit for EU membership (12), (13), (14). Matryoshka accounts added fabricated articles carrying European media branding and a false statement attributed to Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum director Piotr Cywiński (15), (16), (17).
These cases reveal the operational sequence: Russian actors supply disruption, volume or fabricated validation; social platforms accelerate circulation; local media make the message culturally credible; and political actors convert it into a dispute over policy.
The strategic challenge is therefore not only Russian content entering Poland, but the domestic structures that localize it, keep it in circulation and turn audience attention into organization and political access. Myśl Polska and Mateusz Piskorski provide the clearest example.
Myśl Polska As An Organizing Center
On 11 June 2026, Piotr Heszen entered the Russian Embassy in Warsaw carrying a signed declaration calling for the normalization of Polish-Russian relations. Heszen was not simply another guest at the embassy's Russia Day reception. He headed the parliamentary office of Grzegorz Braun's Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (KKP), a far-right political party. The declaration was printed on institutional letterhead, signed, and stamped, and Heszen later said that Braun had approved and recommended the visit (18).
Mateusz Piskorski was also present. A former Polish member of parliament, Piskorski is the central figure in a long-running prosecution over alleged espionage for Russia and China. He denies wrongdoing, and the case remains unresolved. Only months before the embassy reception, however, Braun had called for his "complete political reactivation" and presented him as a desired future KKP parliamentary candidate (19).
The scene did not create a new network. It made an existing one more visible. Around Myśl Polska, a distributed ecosystem had taken shape: the video platform Wbrew Cenzurze; Kluby Myśli Polskiej, or Clubs of Polish Thought; the Andrzej Lepper Foundation for Civil Liberties; veterans' and commemorative organizations; international partner networks; and increasingly close ties to KKP political party.
The Warsaw embassy scene was striking but not unprecedented. Before the 2025 Czech elections, an EK Stratcom investigation began with images of the Czech Svatopluk political movement's leaders Petr Drulák and Michal Semin at the Russian Embassy in Prague. That apparently symbolic visit led to the exposure of a broader pro-Kremlin hub linking a nationwide regional network, media platforms, propagandists, experts, and politicians from several parliamentary forces, with connections through former Slovak prime minister Ján Čarnogurský and PANAP to Russian state-linked institutions. The Warsaw scene appears to be a visible clue to a similar network.
The components remain legally separate, but the same people and events connect them. Myśl Polska supplies the editorial brand and the largest public audience. The video platform Wbrew Cenzurze provides continuous video and commentary. The clubs (Kluby Myśli Polskiej) turn readers into territorial nodes able to organize meetings and delegations. The Lepper foundation supplies a legal and fundraising vehicle. Veterans' organizations create access through wartime memory and diplomatic commemoration. KKP offers a plausible route back into parliament.
The territorial layer was built gradually. Myśl Polska announced its fifth club in March 2022, after earlier branches in Poznań, Łódź, Szczecin and Zamość (20). By September 2023, the network was holding a national congress in Wisła (21). The third congress, in Cedynia in 2025, brought together more than one hundred participants from at least twenty cities, according to the organizers (22). In February 2026, Myśl Polska announced a two-level system with fifteen regional coordinators (23). With Poland's 2027 elections approaching and the regional security environment remaining highly tense, the example of Czechia's Svatopluk network, which directly participated in the 2025 election campaign, may offer a model for the ongoing evolution of the "clubs" into an instrument of regional political mobilization.
The network also demonstrated cross-border mobility. In March 2026, it reported sending a ninety-person delegation to Serbia and Hungary. Participants included editors, club coordinators, the nationalist media project Xportal, representatives of partner organizations, and activists from other nationalist groups. The delegation met political environments in Serbia and Hungary and reported contacts with Czech and German sovereigntist circles (24). In July 2026, delegations from eleven Polish cities appeared at a commemorative event in Domostawa alongside Piskorski, Tomasz Jankowski and KKP representatives (25).
The activist core remains limited. Congresses generally draw around one hundred people, and local meetings often attract dozens. But the media audience is much larger: third-party analytics estimated approximately a quarter of a million monthly visits to myslpolska website in spring 2026, although such figures should be treated as directional rather than audited readership data (26).
The network's importance lies in combining a small, committed organizer base with national media reach and political access.
The People Who Connect The System
Former Polish MP Mateusz Piskorski appears at almost every junction. He writes and speaks for Myśl Polska, co-produces material with Jankowski for Wbrew Cenzurze, addresses regional clubs, sits on the board of the Lepper foundation and belongs to the presidium of the Association of the Heirs of Polish Combatants of the Second World War. Braun has placed him in KKP's prospective electoral orbit. Piskorski also remains connected to Russian media, ideological conferences, and international organizations promoted by Moscow.
Polish prosecutors charged Piskorski in 2018. Their official statement alleged that, between 2009 and May 2016, he participated in activities conducted by Russian intelligence structures and, separately, Chinese intelligence. Prosecutors alleged that he promoted Russian political objectives, sought to deepen Polish-Ukrainian divisions, conducted influence activity, and received substantial financial benefits (27). These remain official allegations rather than a final judicial finding. Much of the case is classified, the proceedings have lasted for years, and Piskorski denies acting as a spy.
A separate body of public evidence does not depend on the prosecution. In May 2013, the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis, founded by Piskorski, received €21,000 from Crystalord Ltd., a company identified in the Russian Laundromat investigation. The transfer was described as payment for consulting services. OCCRP reported that the organization was not entitled to conduct commercial activity. A former treasurer confirmed the receipt and onward transfer of the money, but the ultimate beneficiary was not established (28). The payment does not prove an intelligence relationship. It establishes that Piskorski's institutional environment received funds through a laundering system used to move Russian money abroad under a description that raised clear questions.
Leaked correspondence belonging to Russian parliamentary insider Sargis Mirzakhanyan provided a broader operational picture. OCCRP and partner outlets reconstructed (29) a network that organized political resolutions, visits to occupied Crimea, election-observation missions, street actions, and paid media placement across Europe. The emails included proposed budgets, honoraria, and logistical instructions. Not every proposed payment was confirmed by bank records. The correspondence placed Piskorski among Mirzakhanyan's closest European partners. He assisted with travel, visa invitations, media output, and political contacts. Ahead of NATO's 2016 Warsaw summit, Mirzakhanyan's team planned an anti-NATO campaign with Piskorski's party Zmiana. Marina Klebanovich, then Piskorski's wife, remained active after his arrest, coordinating Italian contacts and arranging paid pro-Russian publications through partners in Germany and Austria.
The old network had a Kremlin endpoint. Between 2014 and 2017, Mirzakhanyan exchanged more than one thousand emails with Inal Ardzinba, then a department head in the Russian Presidential Administration working under Vladislav Surkov. In April 2026, Ardzinba had returned to the Presidential Administration to head a department in the new Directorate for Strategic Partnership and Cooperation (30). The directorate's official remit includes international projects and interaction with foreign politicians, public figures, and organizations. There is no public evidence that Ardzinba is currently directing the Polish network described. His return makes the historical correspondence operationally relevant:
a former Kremlin endpoint is again working in a structure designed to cultivate international political and civic relationships.
Piskorski has also appeared inside Russia's newer international architecture. In October 2022, he promoted a planned Gdańsk presentation of Aleksandr Dugin's Manifest Wielkiego Przebudzenia i pisma czasu wojny, a volume he edited and introduced; the event was later cancelled. In April 2023, he spoke at the Global Conference on Multipolarity, supported by the International Eurasian Movement and the International Russophile Movement. The program also featured Alexander Dugin, Konstantin Malofeev, Sergei Lavrov and Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (31), (32). In December 2025, the European Union sanctioned the International Russophile Movement, describing it as an amplifier of destabilizing narratives with strong links to the Russian Foreign Ministry and associations with Dugin and Malofeev (33), (34). Myśl Polska republished an earlier Piskorski interview with Dugin in January 2023 and published a further interview in June 2024; it also published his interview with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in May 2024. In May 2024, Piskorski also appeared (online) at a conference hosted by Russia's Civic Chamber on international election observation; this confirms participation in a Russian institutional platform. In June 2026, he attended the Russia Day reception at the Russian Embassy in Warsaw.
Another Polish political expert and pro-Kremlin commentator Tomasz Jankowski provides the clearest bridge between the old milieu and the contemporary organizational structure. In December 2022, he traveled to Moscow for the Gorchakov Foundation's "Dialogue for the Future" conference, met Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and acknowledged that the Russian state-linked foundation paid for his travel and accommodation (35).
On 19 February 2024, Jankowski and Piskorski registered the Andrzej Lepper Foundation for Civil Liberties. Registry data lists Jankowski as president and the person authorized to make declarations on behalf of the foundation independently. Piskorski is a board member (36). Video platform Wbrew Cenzurze subsequently began using the foundation as its visible fundraising infrastructure, directing audiences to a bank account, international transfer details, and a crowdfunding page (37). The organizational significance is clear:
the Piskorski-Jankowski media project has a legal body able to receive donations, sign agreements, and pay expenses. Jankowski himself has described his relationship with Piskorski as daily cooperation (38).
A second resource channel appears in leaked PravFond files. Frontstory's analysis identified Piskorski among people who received support and documented a grant of 900,000 rubles for the organizer of a 2022 online conference in which he participated (39). The documents do not show that PravFond financed all of Piskorski's Polish activity. They do show that a Kremlin-linked and subsequently sanctioned foundation supplied resources to him or to projects featuring him after his release from detention.
Taken together, the pattern demonstrates repeated access to Russian-linked resources across different periods and institutions. The available evidence does not establish a single funding stream for the contemporary network.
It does show how the wider ecosystem converts organizational capacity into repeatable mobilization, local meetings, delegations, international visibility, and a pool of activists able to support future campaigns.
KKP As A Political Conversion Mechanism
Grzegorz Braun's far-right KKP political party did not build the Myśl Polska infrastructure. Its value to the network is scale. In a CBOS survey conducted on 6-8 July 2026, KKP received 8.2% support, while the less radical Mentzen-Bosak-led Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość received 15.2%. Together, the two far-right parties accounted for 23.4% of declared voting intentions. Braun himself received 6.3% of the vote in the first round of the 2025 presidential election, a constituency far beyond Myśl Polska's direct readership (40). By early 2026, Braun was openly discussing Piskorski as a future candidate and describing his return to elected office as a goal (41). Piskorski would bring an established media platform, regional contacts, international relationships, and a recognizable political biography.
The Myśl Polska environment would gain a party vehicle with parliamentary representation and electoral ambitions. Piotr Heszen's Russian embassy visit made this exchange visible. This does not mean that KKP is controlled by Myśl Polska or by Russia. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion:
KKP provides a political conversion mechanism through which a long-standing pro-Russian milieu can acquire parliamentary relevance. Influence does not require a formal merger. A party can absorb candidates, narratives, media access and activist capacity while each organization remains legally separate.
Roland Dubowski's Association of the Heirs of Polish Combatants of the Second World War provides an additional corridor. Registry records identify Dubowski as president and show that Piskorski joined its presidium in April 2025 (42). Dubowski is also a regional coordinator of the Myśl Polska clubs. His association co-organized the Cedynia congress and participated in the Serbia-Hungary delegation (43), (44), (45).
Commemoration creates a socially legitimate setting for contact with Russian diplomats. In May 2026, Myśl Polska reported that its editors and club activists attended an embassy event, while Dubowski's association participated in a ceremony at the Soviet military cemetery with Russia's ambassador, Georgy Mikhno (46). Piskorski and Jankowski appeared in the same broader sequence of events. These events were public and do not prove covert activity. Their function is to sustain relationships under the less controversial language of wartime memory. The June embassy letter marked the point at which that diplomatic corridor opened directly into party politics.
Myśl Polska: Kremlin Propaganda In Polish Words
The movement of stories provides a final illustration of the ecosystem's value. On 22 July 2026, Myśl Polska published a column on the dispute over the "Heroes of the UPA" title. Instead of simply repeating the standard Russian attack on Ukrainian nationalism, the article reframed the controversy as evidence that the United States had allegedly sided with Ukraine against Poland (47). Ukrainian military-intelligence figure Kyrylo Budanov was presented not principally as Zelenskyy's subordinate but as an American protégé.
Ukrainian historical policy was interpreted as a consequence of Washington's disregard for Polish interests. The proposed answer was strategic:
Poland should stop following the United States and normalize relations with Russia, which the author claimed posed no threat.
A Russian-language post reproducing the column's central framing then appeared in Vladimir Solovyov's Telegram ecosystem (48). A message compatible with Kremlin strategy was first expressed in a Polish national frame. It was presented as Polish anger over history, sovereignty, and unequal treatment by the United States. A major Russian propaganda channel then republished it as external confirmation: not Moscow speaking about Poland, but a Polish publication validating Moscow's argument. Myśl Polska produces locally credible material that Russian state-aligned media can recycle as independent foreign validation.
The message returns to Russia carrying a Polish passport.
Adjacent Conservative Infrastructure
The wider right-wing environment contains organizations whose agendas overlap with Kremlin anti-liberal messaging but whose relationship to Moscow requires distinction. Ordo Iuris is an influential Polish ultraconservative legal organization operating within a transnational environment that includes CitizenGO and Agenda Europe. Leaked CitizenGO material referred to a €100,000 contribution from Russian Orthodox conservative oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and documented financial relations inside the broader network (49). Alexey Komov, a close Malofeev associate, served on CitizenGO's board until February 2023, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (50). During the period covered by the leaked records, Ordo Iuris received at least two PLN 11,000 payments from CitizenGO Polska. These facts do not establish that Ordo Iuris is Kremlin-funded, controlled or directed. They place a major Polish conservative institution within an international ecosystem containing Russian-linked intermediaries and opaque financial relationships. Its strategic relevance is ideological: it converts polarizing themes into legal and expert language usable beyond openly pro-Russian circles.
Distribution Networks: Telegram, TikTok, And Proxy Media
EK Stratcom identified twenty active Polish-language Telegram channels with more than 112,000 subscribers and an estimated weekly reach of 1-1.5 million views during the monitoring period (51). The ecosystem is concentrated enough for content to travel quickly but varied enough to reach audiences interested in politics, military affairs, protest, crime, conspiracy content and political humor.
Channels including @infokju, @ndp_pl, @dobrasprawa, and @swiatinformacji function as aggregation hubs. @WiadomosciCzasowOstatecznych, @Olej_w_Glowie, @PolskaAmerykaNewsPoPolsku, and @infowarpolska focus on Western decline, NATO and opposition to support for Ukraine, while military channels such as @sztuka_wojny and @infozfrontu provide Russian-compatible interpretations of the war. Two nodes have clearer provenance: @infodefPOLAND belongs to the broader InfoDefense ecosystem, and @ukr_leaks_pl carries material associated with UKR LEAKS.
Five narrative clusters dominated the monitoring period:
Ukraine as corrupt, militarily ineffective, and ungrateful for Polish support;
NATO, the EU and the United States as drivers of war and economic crisis;
The Polish government, courts, and security services as incompetent or captured;
Sanctions, migration policy, and liberal elites as evidence of a systemic Western failure;
Russian interpretations of the war presented as neutral military analysis.
TikTok supplies rapid testing and high-volume exposure. EK Stratcom identified activity around #Polexit and campaigns claiming that Ukrainians were taking jobs, receiving unjustified privileges or harboring territorial claims against Poland. Other videos used AI-generated presenters or decontextualized images to portray the EU as a threat to Polish sovereignty (52), (53). Once a video gains an initial audience, links and screenshots move into Telegram, where the material can survive account removal and later return through Facebook, YouTube or local websites. The operational success lies in separating the message from its origin.
Polish-language websites give these campaigns a searchable and more durable form. Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny and Myśl Polska are recurrent sources of original or adapted content, while Wolne Media, NCzas.info, Kresy.pl, Magna Polonia, Wolna Polska, Neon24, Prawy.pl and Dziennik Narodowy publish material critical of Ukraine, NATO, the EU, migration policy, and sanctions. These outlets are not equivalent. Some translate or republish SouthFront, Katehon, Global Research, NewsFront, Strategic Culture Foundation, Geopolitica.ru or Portal Kombat/Pravda Network; others are domestic conservative or nationalist outlets whose positions originate in Polish politics.
Directly connected Russian projects, habitual amplifiers and independent Polish actors can circulate the same framing without belonging to a single command structure. TikTok provides initial exposure, Telegram preserves and politicizes the material, and websites give it longevity and search visibility. This distribution layer supplies reach; the Myśl Polska-Piskorski network adds the organizational and political conversion capacity.
The Longer-Term Risk
Russia's Polish influence ecosystem should be measured by accumulated capacity, not the membership of any single organization. A small organizer core, several hundred active participants, proxy media, at least twenty Telegram channels, repeatable TikTok campaigns and access to a party with parliamentary ambitions can be more useful than a large passive audience.
The immediate risk is electoral activation. The key indicator before the next parliamentary election will be whether Myśl Polska's media, regional clubs and fundraising structures converge with KKP candidate selection around opposition to Ukraine, the EU and NATO.
The second risk is normalization: legitimate disputes over historical memory, refugees and the cost of support can be reframed as evidence that Ukraine is inherently hostile and that Poland requires strategic realignment.
The third risk concerns AI. ISD found AI-chatbot responses about Ukrainians in Poland relying heavily on Pravda Network material; a later investigation found Russian state content in about 18% of leading-chatbot responses on the war, rising to 24% for provocative prompts (54), (55). Repetition can make manipulated sources appear authoritative.
Together, these elements can exploit the next crisis through synchronized narratives, persistent Telegram archives, regional mobilization, opaque fundraising, cross-border contacts and recruitment into parliamentary politics.
The Kremlin does not need to create a pro-Russian Poland. It needs a Poland less able to support Ukraine, less able to develop its own security, less confident in its alliances, and more consumed by conflicts that Moscow can repeatedly intensify. The network described here is designed to make that outcome cumulative.
Sources
EK Strategic Communications Center monitoring dataset, Polish-language Telegram and TikTok ecosystem, June–July 2026. Subscriber totals and reach figures are estimates captured during the monitoring period.