Telewizja Polska SAA fire at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland was a deliberate “act of sabotage”, a government minister has said.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said the fire in the Masovian Voivodeship province was “deliberately designed to disable the station… disrupting internet access for various institutions, including the Ukrainian army”.
He told Polish public broadcaster TVP Info an investigation was ongoing but “many indications suggest” the attack fits into a “new Russian doctrine of attack”. The Kremlin has not commented.
Meanwhile, Denmark’s intelligence service issued a new threat assessment saying it expects Russia to escalate hybrid warfare in the coming months.
In recent weeks a number of European Nato members have said Russia may be preparing attacks to test their commitment to supporting Ukraine, which Moscow denies.
Earlier this month, Germany blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport, while France has ordered a plan to protect critical infrastructure and defence industry sites.
Hybrid warfare or hybrid attacks are loose terms which tend to describe non-military methods designed to exert pressure and destabilise an adversary – for example cyberattacks, sabotage or misinformation.
Proxies are often used to carry out the attacks and Russia always denies involvement, despite growing evidence to the contrary.
The fire at the state-owned Polish satellite station broke out on Wednesday night in Wola Krobowska. It remains operational.
The deputy prime minister said it transmits internet traffic through Poland to countries including Ukraine, and uses SpaceX systems that provide connectivity via Starlink terminals.
Asked about the incident at a news conference with Bulgaria’s leader on Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he disliked “labelling something as sabotage versus an accident without 100% certainty, but it looks bad”.
On Wednesday Poland also said a Russian military helicopter briefly violated its airspace, forcing it to scramble fighter jets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Moscow does not plan to attack Nato states.
Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was Europe speaking about preparing for war, adding: “If Europe attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war [from that in Ukraine], and it will be very short.”
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.
In Ukraine, Kharkiv and Kyiv experienced the worst of Russia’s attacks overnight into Thursday.
In Kharkiv, six people were killed and twelve others injured in a Russian strike on a farm in the village of Stara Hnylytsia, Ukraine’s state emergency services said.
It said they were agricultural workers sorting vegetables, with the head of the Kharkiv region adding that four were women.
DSNS UkraineIn Kyiv, two people were killed and eight others injured overnight, emergency services said. More than 50 civilian facilities were also damaged in the city, including a maternity building.
The hospital’s director said a woman gave birth to a baby boy in a shelter during that attack, adding: “Even on such a terrible night, life goes on.”
Russia’s defence ministry said it had hit Ukrainian defence facilities, logistics and telecom centres, as well as vessels used by the military.
Moldova’s president said four Russian drones crossed into its airspace, with at least one exploding, while Romania’s defence ministry said one drone crashed in its territory.
Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have become more devastating in recent months because of their new jet-powered drones, which are harder to shoot down.
Kyiv is racing to develop low-cost weapons that can counter them as the missiles and fighter jets it has to fight them are too expensive.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “we need ballistic interceptors to protect lives” and called on the US to help.
He said Putin needed to be stopped from continuing the war and “spreading this evil further”, adding: “Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more, kill more people for every kilometre of land.”
He said Ukraine would seek to target the Russian energy sector over the winter.
The Ukrainian president’s comments came as Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev headed to the US to meet Trump administration officials, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Reuters reported, citing two sources.
Russia’s Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Wednesday there would be no pause in the war.
