Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

There’s little doubt that Ukraine has an interest in escalating NATO-Russian tensions through these means, including by employing anti-government Russian and Belarusian nationals in this reported plot, but it’s debatable whether Poland is involved in this and the extent to which it might be if so.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned that Ukraine’s GUR and the Polish intelligence services (none of the several existing ones were specified) are cooking up a false flag attack in Poland, which might “involve a simulated attack on critical infrastructure”, in order to blame Russia and Belarus.

According to them, “Kiev hopes to incite European countries to respond to Russia with the harshest possible force, preferably militarily.”

The veracity of these dramatic claims will now be assessed.

In reverse order, it does indeed appear to be the case that Kiev wants to manipulate NATO members into initiating direct military force against Russia, whether in the special operation zone or elsewhere such as on the territory of its Belarusian mutual defense ally or in its exclave of Kaliningrad. This explains why Zelensky repeated his no-fly zone demands after the suspicious Russian drone incident in Poland and called for closing the Danish Straits to Russian shipping after similarly suspicious incidents in Scandinavia.

Of relevance, SVR claimed that the aforesaid Polish incident and an associated Romanian one were Ukrainian provocations, though it’s still unclear exactly what happened. In any case, it’s also relevant to mention the reports amplified by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova that Ukraine is preparing a false flag drone provocation against NATO as well as Zelensky’s partial responsibility for Trump’s flip-flip on Ukraine, all of which lend credence to suspicions about Ukraine’s motives.

Moving along, the part of their report about how “militants from the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ and the Belarusian ‘K. Kalinovsky Regiment’” have been selected for this next provocation might also be true since they’re known to be Ukrainian proxies, so each’s nationals could indeed be implicated in this plot. That would in turn make it more likely that NATO, including the US, is misled about who’s responsible. As for their claim of Poland’s joint involvement in orchestrating this, however, that’s much more debatable.

Conservative-nationalist Polish President Karol Nawrocki and his National Security Bureau weren’t informed by liberal-globalist Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government that the damage incurred by a home during last month’s drone incident was caused by a wayward Polish missile. They only found out after a source leaked this to the press, which followed Tusk’s government blaming that damage on Russia at an emergency UNSC meeting, thus suggesting that he wanted to manipulate Nawrocki and his allies.

As assessed here, the purpose was to deceive him into authorizing Polish participation in a no-fly zone over Ukraine in order to raise NATO-Russian tensions, with these convoluted means being employed due to his reluctance to further embroil Poland in the conflict. Circling back to SVR’s report, either their source about Poland’s joint involvement in this latest plot is wrong or subversives within its “deep state” are going behind Nawrocki’s back, but the point is that it’s unrealistic to imagine that he’s in on it.

As a reminder, some of SVR’s reports didn’t pan out such as their ones about US plans to replace Zelensky, which were critiqued here in summer 2024. It should also go without saying that Russia truly has no reason to risk an escalation of tensions with NATO by attacking Poland as explained here, here, and here in summer 2023. Nevertheless, given the credible possibility that Ukraine is plotting a false flag attack on Poland, Nawrocki and his own “deep state” allies should urgently launch an investigation.