Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said Poland is preparing “very intensively” for a range of possible security scenarios after reports that the United States had warned Warsaw of the risk of an “armed Russian provocation” on Polish soil.
Polish outlet Onet reported, citing several sources, that the US had repeatedly warned Polish officials about possible Russian plans for a conventional attack on NATO’s eastern flank – an attack from which Poland was “absolutely not excluded.”
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Sources told Onet that, according to US intelligence, the threat could involve a limited Russian or Belarusian ground incursion and could emerge within months.
Polish intelligence sources separately told Onet that possible scenarios could also include drone strikes on critical infrastructure or “simulated air attacks” designed to force Poland to activate its air defenses.
‘Let’s not be afraid’
Commenting on the reports, Tusk said on Friday that Warsaw was preparing for several possible scenarios but did not want to spread panic.
“Poland is preparing very intensively for various scenarios. I don’t intend to frighten anyone, but the coming months, also because of the changing nature of the war in Ukraine, could be truly critical – particularly for the Baltic states,” the prime minister said.
“These concerns are real. Let’s not be afraid. We are preparing for various situations, but we cannot underestimate them.”
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Tusk said Poland’s assessment was informed by allied intelligence.
‘We know what you’re planning. Don’t do it.’
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski warned Russian President Vladimir Putin not to test NATO unity.
“It would be a grave act of recklessness and folly if Vladimir Putin decided to test the Alliance’s unity through some ill-considered action,” Sikorski said on Friday.
Addressing Putin directly, he said: “We know what you are planning. Don’t do it.”
Sikorski said Russia had previously used false-flag incidents to try to create a pretext for war.
“Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia attempted false-flag incidents to create a pretext for war. Regimes of this kind always behave that way,” he said.
Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Warsaw was treating the reports seriously, adding that Russian provocations were already taking place.
“These provocations are happening every day,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
“I take all this information very seriously. That is why our government has made decisions on the largest rearmament program in our history, to be implemented in the shortest possible time,” he added.
Testing NATO
British newspaper The Telegraph reported that any ground-based provocation could be staged from either Kremlin-aligned Belarus or Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, both of which border Poland.
It said Moscow may see such methods as its only realistic way to test NATO because Russian forces remain heavily tied down in Ukraine.
The Telegraph reported that the aim of such a provocation would be to pressure Western allies to suspend military aid to Ukraine.
According to the report, Russia could try to present any incursion into Polish territory as accidental, such as the result of a GPS failure, or as a rescue mission involving a malfunctioning aircraft.
Poland, which lies on NATO’s eastern flank, has been on heightened alert since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Last year, around 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace during a large-scale Russian attack on western Ukraine, prompting NATO to shoot down several of them.
Since then, a series of suspected Russian drone sightings and airspace violations across Europe have fueled concerns that Moscow’s war in Ukraine could spill over into NATO territory.
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