Polish Minister of Digitalization Krzysztof Gawkowski today accused Russia of trying to influence the outcome of this year's presidential election in Poland and that, according to Polish and allied intelligence services, Russia has already begun recruiting agents in Poland.
"Russian services have started looking for Poles in Poland to hire to work for foreign services and influence elections. There is a lot of money involved. I want to warn everyone because this has never happened here before. Poland is at war with Russia in cyberspace and this must be prevented at all costs," Minister Gavkovski told Polish radio station RMF FM.
The minister promised to soon present a report, compiled in cooperation with American institutions, on these Russian efforts to ensure that the president whom Poles will elect this year for a five-year term is favorable to the Kremlin's plans.
The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants to work with opposition parties to develop a plan to protect the elections from foreign interference and to minimize the possible effect on the election campaign and the will of voters.
Minister Gavkovski warned Poles, whom Russian services, as he said, are looking for on the "darknet", that even the smallest, simplest cooperation with foreign intelligence services constitutes the crime of espionage and that the penalties are harsh.
The Polish opposition, however, accused Ukraine of trying to interfere in the Polish presidential election because President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the candidate of the conservative Eurosceptic Law and Justice party, director of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Karol Nawrocki, that if he thinks Ukraine has no place in the European Union and NATO, he should immediately prepare to take up arms and defend his homeland.
"Poles elect their president, not Brussels or Berlin... and Kiev," said Nawrocki today at a rally in the town of Choszczno in northwestern Poland.
Zelensky was also harshly criticized by Polish President Andrzej Duda from the opposition Law and Justice party, while the favorite in the election, the candidate of Prime Minister Tusk's Civic Coalition, Warsaw Mayor Rafalsz Czaskowski, warned that anyone who says today that Ukraine has no place in NATO is playing into Putin's hands.
The head of the BIS Security Intelligence Service of the neighboring Czech Republic, General Michal Koudelka, warned members of the lower house of the Czech parliament this week that due to the parliamentary elections in the fall of this year, the Czech Republic can also expect increased activities of disinformants and more frequent and stronger attempts by Russia to influence the outcome of the elections, as was the case in Romania and Moldova.
"There is no doubt that the Czech Republic is on the list of countries, just like Romania and Moldova, against which subversive, informational and cyber operations by Russian services are directed," said Koudelka, but added that the "disinformation scene" in the Czech Republic is different and that Russian services cannot so easily transfer proven scenarios from Romania and Moldova.
The head of the BIS emphasized that lies and disinformation are also directed against the Czech center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Petr Fijala, and that the opposition led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš also has experience with such dissemination of disinformation against it.
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