On July 21, 2023, at a meeting of the President of the Russian Federation with permanent members of the Security Council, they spoke about the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian military formation, the number of which was decided to be increased to participate in hostilities in Ukraine. We decided to check if this is true.
July 21 Vladimir Putin in videoconference met with permanent members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin was the first to take the floor. His speech was dedicated to Poland - namely, as Naryshkin argued, to Warsaw’s plans to directly intervene in the war in Ukraine. According to the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, for these purposes it is planned to “significantly increase the size of the combined arms Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade.” Putin responded that this information had already appeared in the European press. Indeed, back in April 2023 “Russian newspaper“wrote with reference to the Polish publication Dziennik Polityczny that Poland “is forming an international corps of Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian volunteers, which will be intended for combat operations in Ukraine.” The official printed publication of the Russian government noted that the size of the corps will be 20,000 - 25,000 people, and the formation itself will be divided into three national brigades: the Polish and Lithuanian will be based in Lublin (Poland), the Ukrainian - in Yavorov (Lviv region of Ukraine).
Negotiations on the creation of a joint Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian unit started back in 2008. On November 16, 2009, representatives of the defense ministries of the three countries signed a protocol of intent. But the parties took concrete steps only in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. On September 19, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Valeriy Geletey signed agreement on the creation of a Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade called “LitPolUkrbrig”. The planned strength of the unit was 3000–3800 Polish troops, 150–300 Lithuanian and 545 Ukrainian.
February 20, 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed adopted by the Verkhovna Rada law on the creation of an international team. In 2016, she took part in NATO exercises "Anaconda-2016"
During its entire existence, the brigade never took part in hostilities, her goal — joint training and exercises, as well as operations under the auspices of the UN Security Council. The headquarters is located in Lublin, Poland, but the military personnel themselves spend most of the time in their own countries, gathering together only for ceremonial events and exercises.
The only source of information about expanding the brigade into a corps and increasing the number of personnel to 20,000 - 25,000 people is the publication’s website Dziennik Polityczny (full name - Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny), published in Polish.
The article provides as evidence photographs from a certain presentation, which allegedly talked about the formation of a new building on the basis of LitPolUkrbrig. The first of them allegedly describes the structure of the case:
The image on the website of the Polish edition is not of the best quality, but a lot can be made out. The upper green rectangle with three oblique crosses above it is a conventional tactical sign indicating the corps, including NATO standards.
Apparently, the authors of the photograph wanted to illustrate the three-part structure of the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian corps. In the left column you can distinguish the names of Polish cities - Lublin and Chelm. This column is identical to that posted on Wikipedia graphic image structure of the 19th Lublin Mechanized Brigade, part of the 18th Mechanized Division of the Polish Ground Forces.
The right column has exactly the same origin: the names of the cities of Panevezys and Rukla are distinguishable there; the authors of the article borrowed this image from the Wikipedia article about Lithuanian ground forces.
Finally, the middle column is taken from the English Wikipedia article, dedicated Ukrainian Ground Forces. This is the 24th mechanized brigade from Yavorov, part of the 13th Army Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Thus, we can definitely say that all three columns are copied from Wikipedia. The very structure of the corps, consisting of only three brigades, bypassing the division level, also raises questions.
The second photograph posted in Dziennik Polityczny should apparently depict the movements of the corps, but it is completely blurred, and it is not possible to establish which territory we are talking about. Another photo is the corps emblem.
The original photo is easy to find at website the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade itself. In the image published in Dziennik Polityczny, on the shield with the emblem, instead of LITPOLUKRBRIG, LITPOLUKRCORPS is written, and in the same way, at the bottom of the banner, the word “brigade” is replaced by “corps”. Moreover, the letter C at the beginning of the word does not correspond to the rest of the font.
Finally, the source of the publication is also questionable. The publication Dziennik Polityczny has been caught on the spread of fakes. For example, in November 2022 it reported that 1,200 Polish mercenaries allegedly died in Ukraine. Moreover, the author of the article was the same - Jakub Mozniak. Back in 2019 edition Rzeczpospolita drew attention to the inaccurate information that was posted in Dziennik Polityczny: some of the site’s articles were simply copied from other media, and the original content invariably repeated the theses of Russian propaganda. The main target of Dziennik Polityczny attacks, as a rule, was the Polish army - for example, as journalists found out Oko.press, the site published fake interviews with high-ranking military officials. In addition, Polish media discoveredthat Jakub Mozniak, as well as the editor-in-chief of Dziennik Polityczny Adam Kaminski, use fake photographs on social networks and their identities cannot be established.
No official information about the formation of the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian corps on the basis of the existing brigade could be found. On the brigade’s website back in April it was published refutation of information about the formation of the corps. At the same time, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense reported, that the attackers are sending letters about supposedly recruiting for a new corps, and stated that this is a deliberate fake, as well as articles about the creation of a new unit.
Thus, we can conclude that the data used by Vladimir Putin and Sergei Naryshkin at the meeting does not correspond to reality. The primary source of this information is a publication that has been disseminating false information about the Polish army and publishing fake interviews for many years.
Cover Photo: Staff Sgt. Philip Steiner/Wikimedia Commons
- Is it true that an advertisement for a contract service with a portrait of Prigozhin appeared in Poland?
- Is it true that a referendum on joining Poland is being prepared in the Lviv region?
- Is it true that a Polish TV channel during a weather forecast showed a map of Poland, which includes the territories of Western Ukraine?
- Is it true that Poland exports black soil from the territory of Ukraine?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
