Summary

The text was originally published in Polish. The original publication can be found here.

On Tuesday – according to Radio Lublin – around 15:40 an explosion happened in the village of Przewodów in the Hrubieszów district, killing two people. In reaction, a meeting of members of the Committee for National Security and Defence Affairs was held, followed by a meeting of the Council of Ministers. The circumstances of the explosion are not entirely clear. The Prime Minister’s Office is calling for calm and “special caution against attempts at disinformation.”

Although the exact circumstances of the explosion are not yet known, there has been information on social media aimed at misleading and creating an atmosphere of fear. An example of such fake news is a tweet published on Tuesday evening – a few hours after the explosion in Przewodów – by a user who presents himself as a motorsport fan.

Source: Twitter.com

The tweet he shared reads, among other things, that “The Polish military has started to withdraw military equipment to the border in the Przewodów village area.” Attached to the tweet are two photos showing the night passage of military vehicles.

This is a photo from a military training in September 2021

In fact, the photos shared in the tweet as evidence of the alleged withdrawal of Polish military equipment to the border with Ukraine after the explosion in the village of Przewodów have nothing to do with this situation. 

Zdolności Sił Zbrojnych RP do szybkiego przerzutu są kluczowe. 12 Szczecińska Dywizja Zmechanizowana rozpoczyna jedne z największych ćwiczeń od lat. Żołnierze przemieszczają się właśnie z zachodu na wschodnie poligony. pic.twitter.com/NvOSJ3l80K

— Mariusz Błaszczak (@mblaszczak) September 5, 2021

The photograph that was used illustrates a military training that took place in September 2021. At the time, the photo was published on the official Twitter profile of Minister of Defence Mariusz Blaszczak.

In Minister Blaszczak’s tweet, we read: “The capability of the Polish Armed Forces for rapid deployment is crucial. The 12th Szczecin Mechanised Division is starting on one of the largest exercises in years. Soldiers are currently moving from the west to the eastern training grounds.”

No confirmation of information about the transfer of Polish troops

In response to the explosion in Przewodów, the combat readiness of selected branches of the Polish armed forces has been raised, according to the Prime Minister’s Office, “with particular emphasis on monitoring the airspace in an enhanced manner, together with our allies.”

According to the information from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Police, Border Guard, State Fire Service and “other services – including secret service” were also put on high alert. Earlier, a statement about increasing the readiness of some divisions of the military was made by government spokesman Piotr Müller.

However, there is no evidence to support the transfer of Polish troops to the border with Ukraine, and the only confirmation that is supposed to prove this claim is based on the false photograph, dating back to 2021.

Fake news about the transfer of the Polish army circulates abroad

After the explosion in Przewodów, the photograph from September 2021 acquired its second life. Not only was it used to spread false information on the Polish-language Twitter account, but also to illustrate articles published in foreign websites about events in Poland on November 15.

The photo was used to illustrate an article about the transfer of Polish military equipment to Poland’s eastern border, published on the Georgian Pia.ge news site. The photograph was also used by the Hungarian website Karpatalja in a news about increasing the combat readiness of some military units in Poland. The Ukrainian website Unian.ua also reported on the redeployment of Polish troops to the eastern border.