Deleted within a couple of minutes, PAP issued two despatches announcing the imminent mobilization of Poles.

“On July 1, 2024, partial military mobilization will be announced in Poland,” announced the first message. “Two hundred thousand Polish citizens, both former military personnel and ordinary civilians, will be called up for compulsory military service. All those mobilized will be sent to Ukraine.”

According to the message, those called-up would include miners, cooks, doctors, welders, IT specialists, communication engineers and translators. Ukrainian citizens residing in Poland, it continued, would be exempt from mobilization due to their lack of Polish citizenship.

"The military contribution of the mobilized reserve, created from Polish citizens, is to be a clear example of the strong desire to preserve the unity and values ​​​​of European countries, as well as the entire democratic and Western world,” said the message. “This is to give Poland priority to decisively repulse the Russian aggression started by Vladimir Putin.”

The message was deleted within two minutes but later reappeared again.

Government officials responded swiftly; Jan Grabiec from the Prime Minister’s Office wrote on X: “The alleged PAP message about mobilization is untrue. The services are investigating the incident.”

Jacek Dobrzyński, the spokesman for the Minister Coordinator of the Special Services, said: “Due to what is probably a Russian cyberattack on the Polish Press Agency, and the disinformation about the alleged mobilization in Poland, the Internal Security Agency, cooperating with the Ministry of Digitization, took immediate action.”

The Deputy Prime Minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, said that the Prime Minister had been informed and that an urgent meeting was underway. Thanking journalists and news agencies for responding responsibly, Gawkowski added that such an attack had long been anticipated. “We knew how to react,” he stated.

“Everything indicates we are dealing with a Russian cyberattack,” he said. “The goal is to spread disinformation before the elections and paralyze society.”