The Russian drone incursion of Polish airspace was faked by the Polish Government to drag the country into the war in Ukraine, according to Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun and fellow right-wing Polish MP Janusz Korwin-Mikke.
They claimed the drones found in Poland on September 10 did not have the required range to reach the country from Russia, whereas they could have been sent from Ukraine and Belarus.
This followed the government’s admission it had misled the UN Security Council over damage to a Polish property during the drone incursion.
At a press conference, Braun and Korwin-Mikke announced that a notification of a suspected crime has been filed with prosecutors.
Braun, who this spring came fourth with about 6 per cent in Poland’s presidential election, called the incident, which saw around 20 drones enter Polish airspace, “an international provocation, the aim of which was to push Poland ever deeper into war”.
The pair claimed the drones could not have been flown from Russia because their maximum range was 600 kilometres.
Former Polish president Andrzej Duda said, in his opinion, Ukraine had attempted to “drag Poland into the war in Ukraine” when it falsely accused Russia of responsibility for what turned out to be a stray Ukrainian rocket killing two farm workers in 2022.
Braun and Korwin-Mikke have been openly hostile towards Ukraine and sympathetic towards Russia throughout the war.
In 2022, Braun was the only Polish MP who did not support a parliamentary resolution condemning Russia for violating international law and has consistently claimed Poland is being “Ukrainised” by its migrants.
Korwin-Mikke, who supports the return of monarchy and Poland exiting the European Union, has said that he would always “support good relations with Russia, because I’m scared of the growing power in Ukraine and I want to have an ally on the other side of it”.
The MEP, who has not been admitted to any of the right-wing groupings in the European Parliament, leads the splinter Confederation of the Crown party, which broke from the Confederation Party. He and Korwin-Mikke were involved in founding; it is polling 3 per cent to 6 per cent.
Braun is facing a multitude of indictments for alleged offences such as Holocaust denial, physically attacking a doctor for performing a late abortion and dousing a Hanukkah menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament.
Responding directly to Braun and Korwin-Mikke’s claim, Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, who has, unsuccessfully so far, been pressing NATO to allow Poland to shoot down Russian drones over Ukraine, called the pair “Russian lackeys”.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who leads the centre-left government, warned that “spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation is an act that harms the Polish State, its security and its citizens”. He added that “stupidity, and even more so political views, should not be treated as a mitigating circumstance”.
A similar stance was taken by the opposition Conservatives (PiS) and President Karol Nawrocki who, after the incursion, condemned any spreading of “Russian disinformation, which has been suggesting that the drones attacking Polish airspace are Ukrainian in order to drag Poland into the war”.
Tusk’s government has, though, suffered severe embarrassment over misinforming the UN Security Council. It claimed the armaments were responsible for destroying a house when it was established that the damage was caused by a Polish F-16 rocket that misfired.
More embarrassment followed when the government-controlled Polish Press Agency (PAP) misreported remarks made by US President Donald Trump on September 17 on Fox TV claiming that the US head of state had said he would only send additional air cover to Poland after the end of the war in Ukraine.
In fact, Trump was referring to air cover for Ukraine only being available after the war ends. Government ministers and much of Polish media cited the PAP report as evidence the US was backsliding on support for Poland.
The Tusk government has been sceptical of Trump’s peace overtures and attempts to warm relations with Belarus. Poland chose to close the border with Belarus and stop EU trade by rail with China over joint Belarusian and Russian Zapad military exercises – tracked by US military observers – despite Belarus having warned Poland of the Russian drone incursion.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda declared Zapad to be of no threat to his country and the exercises were reported to be smaller than their equivalent four years ago.
Tusk also misinformed the public about an incident in which a drone flew over government buildings on September 16. The Polish PM said two Belarusians had been apprehended for the incident. It turned out that the nationality of the detained alleged drone operator was Ukrainian.
In another embarrassing incident, Tusk’s own family car, a Lexus, was stolen from outside of his home on September 13 despite 24-hour surveillance by the authorities. One of his ministers went on record speculating whether there was Russian involvement, without producing any evidence.
