Poland’s Tusk says Russian hackers attacked ruling parties’ websites

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Russian hackers attacked the websites of parties in his ruling coalition, two days before Sunday’s presidential election.

The frontrunner in Sunday’s election is a high-ranking member of Tusk’s Civic Platform party, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski.

“Two days before the elections, a group of Russian hackers active on Telegram have attacked the Civic Platform internet sites,” Tusk wrote on X on Friday afternoon.

Tusk said that the websites of other parties in his governing coalition, the Left and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), were also targeted. “Our services are conducting intensive operations. The attack is still on,” he said.

Polish authorities were also investigating paid political advertisements on Facebook that a Polish state research institute, NASK, identified as possible electoral interference. NASK is the Polish acronym for National Research and Academic Computer Network.

The institute said that it reported the misinformation to Meta, which owns Facebook, and that the ads were removed.

It comes as presidential candidates held their final rallies on Friday, as voters will cast ballots to replace conservative incumbent Andrzej Duda, whose second and final five-year term ends in August.

With 13 candidates, a decisive first-round victory is unlikely, and a runoff on 1 June is widely expected.

Polls point to a likely showdown between Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the Law and Justice party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.

An important election for a nation at the front line

Trzaskowski told a rally crowd Poland needs a president “who is credible”.

“Of course, strengthening our security, five per cent of GDP for defense, because we have to be safe. We have to spend more money on our security, strengthen our eastern border and invest in our Polish defense industry. We have to do it together,” he added.

Trzaskowski’s main opponent, Nawrocki, represents how the party backing him, Law and Justice, is turning further to the right as support for the hard right grows.

“I will build our international relations and those with the United States and make Poland the leader of the European Union in transatlantic relations,” Nawrocki told the crowd.

One of the new president’s most important tasks will be maintaining strong ties with the US, widely seen as essential to the survival of a country in an increasingly volatile neighbourhood.

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Poland’s geography gives the election added importance. Bordering Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, Belarus and war-torn Ukraine — as well as several Western allies — Poland occupies a critical position along NATO’s eastern flank and serves as a key logistics hub for military aid to Ukraine.

While Poland is a parliamentary democracy, the presidency wields significant influence. The president serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, holds veto power, shapes foreign policy and plays a symbolic role in national discourse.