Russian Propaganda Spreads Fake News About Poland Annexing Western Ukraine

Russian propaganda has spread claims that Poland is preparing to annex the historic Volhynia region in western Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian center has accused Russian propaganda outlets of pushing false narratives about Poland ahead of its presidential election runoff scheduled for Sunday.

“The goal of this information provocation is to sow distrust between Ukrainians and Poles, discredit Ukraine-Poland cooperation, and influence voter sentiment ahead of Poland’s second round of elections on June 1,” the center said in a post on the X social media platform.

According to the center, posts on Russian platforms claim that a Polish language teacher in Volyn  distributed maps to students showing “hypothetical Polish borders” that include parts of Ukrainian territory. The source of the map, however, appears to be exclusively Russian.

“These posts are accompanied by insinuations about alleged Polish plans to annex part of Ukraine’s territory,” the Kyiv-based agency said in a statement.

“These statements by Russian propagandists have nothing to do with reality, and the map they describe is available only in Russian sources.”

The disinformation center warned that the spread of such narratives is part of a broader effort to damage relations between Poland and Ukraine.

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Volhynia massacre

Volhynia is a historical region that today spans several areas in northwestern Ukraine, including the Volyn, Rivne and Zhytomyr regions. It has long been a sensitive subject in Polish-Ukrainian relations due to massacres that took place there during World War II.

Between 1943 and 1945, tens of thousands of ethnic Poles were killed in the Volhynia massacre. The atrocities were carried out by Ukrainian nationalist forces and remain a deeply painful chapter in the shared history of the two nations. Estimates of the number of Polish victims range from 40,000 to 100,000.