Alliance4EuropeContributing Organisations:
Alliance4Europe, Debunk.org, DFRLab, GLOBSEC, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Alliance for Securing Democracy, EU DisinfoLab, INFO OPS Poland Foundation, CEE Digital Democracy Watch, Demagog Association Poland, Political Accountability Foundation, University of Amsterdam, Democracy Reporting International, The Global Security Initiative, Civic Resilience Foundation
Authors:
Saman Nazari, Alliance4Europe
Dr. Virginie Andre, Debunk.org
Sophie Sacilotto, Debunk.org
Kinga Margas, Alliance4Europe
Malak Altaeb, Debunk.org
Joel Boehme, Alliance4Europe
Ewan Casandjian, Alliance4Europe
Dr. Jakub Kubś, GLOBSEC
Dr. Maria Giovanna Sessa, EU DisinfoLab
Contributors:
Givi Gigitashvili, DFRLab
ISD Researchers
Maria Voltsichina, Debunk.org
Pavlo Kryvenko, Debunk.org
Laima Venclauskienė, Debunk.org
Kamila Korońska, University of Amsterdam
Larissa Doroshenko, Alliance for Securing Democracy
Peter Benzoni, Alliance for Securing Democracy
Jakub Szymik, CEE Digital Democracy Watch
Martyna Hoffman, Political Accountability Foundation
Aleksandra Wojtowicz, Independent Researcher
Aleksy Szymkiewicz, Demagog Association Poland
Adam Maternik, Demagog Association Poland
Miłosz Dzienio, Independent Researcher
INFO OPS Poland Foundation Researchers (2)
Duncan Allen, Democracy Reporting International
Wojciech Solak, Civic Resilience Foundation
Shiva Shah, The Global Security Initiative
Zachary Horsington, The Global Security Initiative
This report was made possible through the FIMI-ISAC project ‘FIMI Defenders for Election Integrity’ and the Counter Disinformation Network infrastructure. Read more about these below.
Executive Summary
This report provides a critical assessment of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) during the election period of the 2025 Polish presidential elections. It examines the methods employed, key perpetrators, evolving tactics, and the efficacy of defensive responses.
Our findings, drawn from the collective monitoring and response effort of 28 organisations and the generation of 20 incident alerts, highlight the persistent and multifaceted information threat facing the Polish presidential elections.
A recurring strategic narrative consistently emerged during the election period, portraying EU countries and Ukraine negatively, often accusing them of harming Poland and attempting to manipulate its elections. This narrative strategically positioned far-right Polish politicians as defenders of national sovereignty against perceived external influence.
Key influence information operations targeting the elections included the Doppelganger operation, Operation Overload, and the Pravda Network, all of which disseminated such misleading narratives. Radio Belarus, a sanctioned Belarusian state media, also actively interfered by amplifying ideologically aligned candidates. Lega Artis, Citizen GO, Ordo Iuris, and other foreign-aligned actors were also found to have amplified polarising narratives and promoted candidates that aligned with their interests.
These influence operations manipulated public opinion, often via the use of fabricated online personas and coordinated inauthentic behaviour. They exploited several vulnerabilities in social media platforms, which could be seen as potential systemic risks as defined by the Digital Services Act (DSA). These include the ease of creating accounts on X, the lack of advertisement ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) principles on Meta, and inconsistent policy and moderation of murky accounts conducting political campaigns on TikTok.
Finally, the Polish threat landscape was remarkably consistent across the 2017, 2021, and 2025 election campaigns. This presents a notable contrast to other contexts where the threat landscape has exhibited a more dynamic or novel evolution of tactics, while in Poland, such tactics have been a persistent issue for some time.
Beyond detailing tactics employed by FIMI actors, this report exposes the concerning adoption of similar manipulative tools by domestic actors to gain political leverage. Critically, it also highlights that despite interventions from civil society, regulators, and platforms, significant deficiencies in policy enforcement and platform accountability persist. The report concludes with recommendations on improving civil society engagement to counter future FIMI threats.
While the Polish elections were targeted by foreign influence operations and suffered information manipulation incidents, analysis shows that their impact seems to have been constrained by several factors, including public resilience, active civil society responses, and the limited operational sophistication of some campaigns. However, in an increasingly polarised information ecosystem where electoral outcomes can be razor-thin, the imperative for robust national resilience against such threats remains paramount.
This approach acknowledges that resilience is not solely the responsibility of governments or platforms, but requires the active, coordinated participation of all societal sectors – including civil society, media, academia, the private sector, and individual citizens. Consequently, the need for continuous work to foster a whole-of-society resilience against FIMI is compounded.