DISINFO: Poland is recruiting soldiers to be sent to Ukraine
SUMMARY
The Polish authorities are trying to recruit local residents as crew for German Leopard tanks supplied to Ukraine.
Campaign material is placed in public places in Polish cities. "Defend native Polish lands. Become a tankman. Protect Poland in Ukraine," reads the call on posters hung in the Polish subway.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative presenting Poland as a state with alleged imperial ambitions and trying to undermine the Western support for Ukraine.
The false narrative is based on a fabricated image, which uses the style of the real campaign Zostań Żołnierzem Rzeczypospolitej (“Become a soldier of the Polish republic”), which started in 2018.
The advertisement for the Polish army is real but has nothing to do with the recruitment of volunteers as alleged. There is no such poster featuring a tank with an appeal to “defend native Polish lands” in Ukraine. These captions were added by editing the picture taken at a metro station in Warsaw, as explained by The Insider.
The article also contains the recurring narratives that Poland will invade Ukraine as well as Ukraine does not exist, it is part of Russia. See more disinformation narratives on the Russia's invasion of Ukraine.