Russia’s FSB Accused of Using Fake Volyn Tragedy Documents to Strain Ukraine-Poland Relations

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation says Russia is using fabricated archival material and state media amplification to exploit historical trauma between Ukrainians and Poles. The allegation comes amid wider warnings about Russian influence operations targeting Poland.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council has accused Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, of launching a disinformation operation built around supposedly archival documents on the Volyn tragedy, a deeply sensitive episode in Ukrainian-Polish history.

The Center’s allegation, reported by Ukrainska Pravda on 5 July, is that Russian state-controlled media were instructed to amplify forged Second World War-era materials to inflame tensions between Ukraine and Poland at a politically sensitive moment for both countries.

Forged Documents

According to Andrii Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, the FSB planned to publish forged documents related to the Volyn tragedy on 5 July to damage Ukrainian-Polish relations. Ukrainska Pravda quoted Kovalenko as saying that Russian state media had been instructed to amplify the story and that FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov was personally overseeing information operations intended to create division between Poland and Ukraine.

The Center framed the alleged campaign as an attempt to use historical memory as an instrument of political division. The Center said the goal was “to destroy the strategic partnership through manipulation of the past.”

First, the report said that FSB officers planned to release falsified “documents” about Second World War events, specifically the Volyn tragedy, and that Russian state media and troll networks had been tasked with spreading the story.

The Russia Today article and the disputed “declassified” files

Ukrainska Pravda reported that, overnight on 4–5 July, Russia Today published an article citing supposedly “declassified” FSB files. According to the report, the article accused Dmytro Kliachkivskyi, a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought both Nazis and Soviets during World War II, of involvement in the killing of 11 Catholic priests and nearly 2,000 Poles in Volodymyr-Volynskyi in early summer 1943.

Those claims should be treated as contested. The source material available here does not include the alleged archival documents or independent forensic verification of them.

The Center for Countering Disinformation describes the materials as forged; Russian state media present them as declassified files. The available evidence does not allow an independent assessment of authenticity.

The timing matters too. Ukrainian officials warned on 4 July that Russia was preparing a provocation involving forged Volyn-related documents, and Russian state media then published Volyn-related claims on 4–5 July.

Historical grievance as an influence tool

The Volyn tragedy remains one of the most politically sensitive historical issues between Ukraine and Poland. That makes it a useful target for influence operations because the subject can produce strong public reactions even when new claims are poorly sourced or selectively framed.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation argues that Russian messaging is deliberately exploiting this sensitivity. Media, citing the Center and Poland’s Minister-Coordinator of Special Services Tomasz Siemoniak, reported a rise in Russian bot farm activity aimed at inflaming Polish-Ukrainian relations through manipulative content and historical disputes.

This does not prove that every Volyn-related discussion is a Russian operation. It does, however, show why the alleged use of archival-looking documents matters: documents that appear historical can be used to give contemporary political messaging a false evidentiary weight.

Poland as a target of Russian hybrid activity

The alleged document operation fits into a broader set of warnings about Russian activity targeting Poland and Ukrainian-Polish relations.

Reuters reported on 29 June that Polish security services had deported nine Ukrainians and two Belarusians on suspicion of using Russian money to recruit Ukrainian refugees to demonstrate against Kyiv. Poland’s Internal Security Agency, ABW, said the organizers aimed to influence the Ukrainian refugee community in Poland and use it to promote political slogans.

The Security Service of Ukraine and Polish law enforcement also said they had identified 11 people involved in paid anti-Ukrainian rallies in Poland. According to the SBU account reported by The New Voice of Ukraine, the actions included five staged protest events in Warsaw and Wrocław, with participants allegedly offered $100–$200 for one-time participation.

Separately, European media reported that the United States had warned Poland that Moscow may be considering an armed provocation against Poland to test NATO’s response. The report was published by The Telegraph and Onet and described scenarios including drone attacks, simulated air attacks, or a border-area hybrid incident.

Taken together, these reports point to a wider concern among Ukrainian and Polish authorities: that Russia is using a combination of paid agitation, online amplification, historical grievance narratives, and potential provocations to weaken support for Ukraine and create mistrust inside Poland.

Why it matters

The strategic significance lies less in one article by Russian state media than in the method described by Ukrainian officials: using historical grievance to fracture a present-day alliance.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most important European partners since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Any sustained effort to inflame Ukrainian-Polish historical disputes could have political effects beyond public debate, especially if paired with bot networks, paid street actions, and provocative incidents.

The alleged Volyn document campaign therefore should be read as part of the information-war environment around Ukraine’s alliances. It is a contest not only over history but also over whether historical memory can be weaponized to weaken current security cooperation.

Ukrainian officials are not describing an isolated media story but a coordinated influence pattern in which archival claims, state media, bot activity, and paid agitation operate together.

The strongest corroboration for the broader pattern comes from outside the Volyn document claim. Reuters’ reporting on Polish deportations and ABW’s statements about Russian-funded influence activity show that Polish authorities are already treating Russian operations targeting Ukrainian refugees and Polish public opinion as a live security issue.

Ukraine’s warning about fake Volyn tragedy documents should be treated as a serious allegation within a broader context of documented Russian influence activity targeting Poland and Ukrainian-Polish relations.

The core issue is clear: historical trauma is being pulled into a contemporary information war. Whether the latest documents are conclusively proven forged or not, the episode shows how unresolved memory politics can become a target surface for hostile influence operations aimed at weakening Ukraine’s alliances.