The Polish Government has alleged that an overnight fire at a ground station used by Elon Musk’s satellite internet company Starlink to provide internet services to Ukraine was caused deliberately.
According to Deputy Prime Minister and digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, the station is operated by Exatel, a Polish state-owned telecommunications company, and serves as an internet hub for traffic passing through Poland, including internet services to Ukraine, which relies heavily on Starlink connections.
The fire primarily involved the power station, the distribution board and a generator. Three fire crews were sent to the site after the alarm was raised at 9.07pm, according to Polsat News. Firefighters brought the situation under control, extinguished the fire and secured the area.
As a result of the incident, the antennas and the electric generator were damaged.
Firefighters have said their preliminary findings point to deliberate ignition, but an electrical fault has not been ruled out.
Asked whether the fire had caused an interruption in internet access, Gawkowski said no critical disruption had been reported and that no one was injured.
The fire broke out on the evening of September 23 at a Starlink ground station in Wola Krobowska, Grójec county, south of Warsaw. Gawkowski said there were indications that it had been deliberately started to disrupt the station’s operations and was “another element of hybrid warfare”.
He conceded that it was too early to say whether Russia was behind the fire, though he felt that it fitted what he described as the “new Russian approach to attacks”.
Gawkowski said the suspected modus operandi involved arson at locations important to state infrastructure and acts of sabotage targeting critical infrastructure.
“The Russians want to paralyse critical infrastructure, cut off water, gas and electricity, paralyse the internet,” said the minister.
“It won’t be tanks or aeroplanes coming in here. Instead, we’ll have actions aimed at shutting down the internet, making sure there is no water in the taps, no gas and no electricity,” he argued.
Poland has been on heightened alert for acts of sabotage since Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022. Russia has repeatedly denied any such actions.
The minister also said that disabling such a station could disrupt internet services and affect the operation of infrastructure such as ATMs.
“Sometimes we don’t realise that such a telecommunications relay determines whether a part of Poland, Europe or Ukraine simply has internet access,” he said, adding that the fire damaged the station’s power supply equipment and a generator.
“It is clearly visible that these acts of sabotage were targeted in such a way as to disable the station,” disrupting internet access for Ukraine, Gawkowski claimed.
Gawkowski revealed that Polish security services, including the Internal Security Agency (ABW), which is investigating the incident, had for months been working to prevent Russian infiltration. He accused Russia of sending or hiring people in Poland, paying them large sums, to collect information, photograph sites and identify critical infrastructure.
“We are dealing with a major wave of modern espionage, involving the infiltration of infrastructure, the collection of data and its subsequent use,” he said.
The Polish Government has in recent months warned that Russia is planning to escalate its hybrid actions against Poland and other countries in the region, including through acts of sabotage such as arson, disinformation and potential airspace and border violations.
On August 31, a fire was reported at a drone plant in Skarżysko-Kamienna, south-central Poland, belonging to WB Electronics, which supplies the armed forces of Ukraine and Poland, among others. National prosecutors have opened a terrorism investigation into suspected arson carried out on behalf of foreign intelligence.
In the more distant past there have been instances of arson attacks in shopping malls, including the May 2024 blaze that destroyed the Marywilska 44 shopping centre in Warsaw, which Tusk has blamed on Russian services.
On July 30, a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile landed in a field in eastern Poland’s Lublin province. In September 2025, around 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, with some of them being shot down. The incursion prompted NATO to launch its Eastern Sentry mission.
Poland has become the main hub for transporting Western military and humanitarian support to Kyiv. Gawkowski has previously said Warsaw pays the subscription fees for Starlink terminals it has donated to Ukraine.
On September 17, Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned the Sejm that Russia’s plans in the war against Ukraine include “hybrid” drone and missile strikes against Kyiv’s allies, including Poland.
Ground stations are used by Starlink to connect its satellite constellation with terrestrial communications infrastructure. The facility in Poland, alongside one near Kaunas in Lithuania, serves the entire Central and Eastern Europe region, including Ukraine.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX does not publicly disclose all of its gateway stations in the region. Their locations can, though, be identified through mapping data and telecommunications regulatory filings.
Starlink ground stations are a key link between the satellite network and terrestrial internet infrastructure.
While Starlink satellites can relay data between one another using laser links, traffic must ultimately be routed through ground infrastructure before reaching terrestrial networks and data centres.
