Disinformation Spreads Online Over Polish Military Parade Preparations

Social media footage of military equipment moving through Warsaw for Polish Armed Forces Day has been falsely linked to war preparations.

Polish Armed Forces Day Parade Preparations

On Saturday, August 15, a military parade in Warsaw and a naval parade in Gdynia will be held to celebrate Polish Armed Forces Day on the 106th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw. Modern military equipment will be visible in Warsaw, including Borsuk and Rosomak combat vehicles, Abrams and K2 tanks, Krab self-propelled howitzers, and Gladius drone systems. Aviation will also present itself, including F-16 and F-35 aircraft, as well as Black Hawk, AW149, and AH-64 Apache helicopters. Simultaneously, a naval parade featuring Navy ships will take place in the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk in Gdynia.

Disinformation on Social Media Platforms

Footage of preparations for the parade showing moving tanks is circulating on social media platforms. On platform X, however, the videos were accompanied by false claims that the equipment movements were related to Poland’s preparations for war. One such publication gathered over 300,000 views.

False Information Published in Previous Years

Footage from rehearsals ahead of the parade was also used to spread false information a year ago. At that time, internet users falsely claimed that the military equipment visible in the footage was allegedly additional equipment sent to Poland by NATO.

In September 2024, the French agency AFP described a case of an internet user who published a video on platform X showing the passage of tanks in Warsaw. In his post, he falsely claimed that the equipment visible in the video was to be sent to fight Russia. In reality, the footage came from a military parade held on August 15, 2024, on the Vistula Boulevards in Warsaw.

In previous years, false information was also published claiming that Ukrainian flags allegedly appeared on the military vehicles participating in the parade. In reality, these were military pennants.

Ministry of National Defense Announced Military Equipment Movements

The Ministry of National Defense announced in a statement that military equipment would travel through the streets of Warsaw as part of preparations for Polish Armed Forces Day. According to the announcement, parade rehearsals took place on the night of August 8 to 9 between 11:00 PM and 3:00 AM.

Historical Significance of Polish Armed Forces Day

Polish Armed Forces Day, celebrated annually on August 15, commemorates the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, in which Polish forces successfully counter-offensively pushed back Bolshevik forces from near Warsaw. For years, the parade, featuring thousands of soldiers presenting the most modern weaponry in the equipment of the Polish army, has remained an important point of the celebrations.