Did Polish armed forces write a letter in April 2022 announcing a plan to send "airborne units" to Ukraine? No, that's not true: The Armed Forces General Command of Poland debunked the claim. There are also no other credible reports of such an order.
The claim appeared in this tweet (archived here) posted on May 2, 2022. The tweet included an image of a letter seemingly penned in April 2022 and written in Polish and another image of the letter translated to English. The tweet reads:
Reports that multiple Polish airborne units have been put on high alert to assist Ukraine in keeping infrastructure in Lviv and Volyn oblasts safe. These were spread on pro Russian telegrams however they do appear genuine. Only time will tell #russia #Ukraine️ #Poland #OSINT
This is what the tweet looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon May 9 18:14:57 2022 UTC)
The official Twitter account of the General Command responded to another tweet broadcasting the letter. On May 3, 2022, the General Command tweeted:
We have noticed this document on a few TT accounts. This is a false order of the Polish General Staff. The whole document is FAKE! We observe more and more such counterfeit military documents in Polish mass media. Please, DO NOT share this FAKE NEWS ‼️ @MON_GOV_PL @SztabGenWP
The tweet is also embedded below:
We have noticed this document on a few TT accounts. This is a false order of the Polish General Staff. The whole document is FAKE! We observe more and more such counterfeit military documents in Polish mass media. Please, DO NOT share this FAKE NEWS‼️ @MON_GOV_PL @SztabGenWP
-- Dowództwo Generalne (@DGeneralneRSZ) May 3, 2022
There are no reports of such a letter from the General Command, the General Staff of the Polish Army or Poland's Ministry of National Defence. A Google search of the phrases "Polish airborne units Ukraine" and "Poland Ukraine Lviv and Volyn" did not generate any credible results that supported the claim.
Other outlets such as Reuters and Euronews debunked a similar claim falsely stating that the BBC reported that Poland was preparing to send troops to Ukraine.
More Lead Stories fact checks related to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict can be found here.
