At the end of March 2024, Russian media and Telegram channels reported that a high-ranking military officer from Poland was killed as a result of a missile strike by the Russian army. We checked the validity of such publications.

On March 26, a statement began to spread on Telegram that Polish General Adam Marchak died in the town of Chasov Yar, located near Bakhmut, which was allegedly hit by a missile strike by the Russian military. According to TGStat, posts on this topic received about 2 million views that day, and at least the same number a day later. Among the largest channels that reported on the death of Marchak as a result of the attack on Chasov Yar are “The world of Mikhail Onufrienko"(353,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Colonelcassad (349,000), Voblya (294,000), "Uncle Slava"(232,000), "Belarusian security officer 🇧🇾"(141,000), "Pool N3"(110,000), "Mislivets Egor" (101,000) and "Tucker Carlson for Russia"(100,000). Some bloggers, for example "Unofficial Bezsonov”(384,000 views), in their publications they only made unambiguous hints: “All these messages appeared after the news about the strike of the Russian Iskander tactical missile system on a bunker in the Chasov Yar area, where NATO officers, including senior officers of the United States and Poland, were located to plan military operations” (hereinafter, the author’s spelling and punctuation are preserved). A similar post was published in the channel “Turned on Z war 🇷🇺"(288,000 views). Others, e.g. Dmitry Vasilets (244,000 views), insisted on the reliability of information about Marczak’s death as a result of a Russian attack: “Officially, of course, the Poles will write fables in the media that the NATO general died from natural causes, such as a drunken fall from a horse, or a blood clot in a bathhouse, but in fact they will bury him in a closed coffin, because after Iskander’s arrival there was no other way.” March 28 military correspondent Alexander Kots commented on the results of a thematic survey he conducted on his channel: “31 percent of participants in yesterday’s survey believe that the cause of the sudden death of the Polish general was a stray Iskander.” 30 percent - that he was stabbed to death in a drunken brawl. In any case, this will make us feel better. Fewer enemy generals means the Ukrainian Armed Forces will become less controllable.”

Some pro-Kremlin media outlets that reported on this story used more cautious language. For example, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” March 27 published a note in which she reported that Marchak “could have died as a result of an attack by the Iskander operational-tactical missile system (OTRK) on a buried command post of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the village of Chasov Yar.” On the same day on the website News.ru came out publication under the title “Polish general destroyed in Ukraine? What is known, where Adam Marczak died.” The Tsargrad TV channel turned out to be more categorical, on whose website appeared news with the headline ““Adam Marczak is dead”: Pan General died “of natural causes.” After the Iskander strike.”

The authors of most of the publications mentioned above do not specify how they learned about Marchak’s death as a result of an Iskander strike on the city of Chasov Yar in the Donetsk region. The Telegram channel “Uncle Slava” and some others refer to some operational sources, and blogger Boris Rozhin (aka Colonelcassad) refers to data from the anonymous project DDGeopolitics. The media based their publications on a post on the Telegram channel “Ukraine.ru"(186,000 views), which in turn links to an anonymous channel Ipr 1 (284,000). Its authors write that “Polish Brigadier General Adam Marczak and several other high-ranking NATO officers were suffocated in the underground six-story headquarters,” and attach coordinates within Chasov Yar.

Ipr 1 does not name the source of information in his post, but 18 minutes earlier he reposted publication anonymous channel “NGP RaZVedka” (280,000 views). “According to our information, an attack by the Iskander OTRK in the area of the village. Chasov Yar, the enemy’s buried command post was hit; among other things, officers from NATO countries, in particular the USA and Poland, were present at the command post. The wounded, whom the enemy managed to pull out, were transported to Poland. Carefully follow the news in the Western media, soon another general will die in the mountains, fall out of a helicopter in Oklahoma, or choke on a croissant at breakfast,” said that post published on March 26 at 19:33 Moscow time.

The operational command of the Polish Armed Forces announced the death of Marczak on the same day at 14:04 Moscow time. “It is with deep sadness that we announce that Brigadier General Adam Marczak, Chief of Staff of EU Operational Command Althea in Mons, passed away on Tuesday 26 March 2024. The general's unexpected death occurred from natural causes while he was not on duty. <...> We express our sincere sympathy and sorrow to all the relatives of Mr. General,” it says in the obituary. Russian news agencies and major media outlets that retold it (for example, “RIA Novosti", TASS, RBC, "Kommersant", "Gazeta.ru") neither in these publications nor later did they mention that a high-ranking Polish military man could have died as a result of a Russian attack on Chasov Yar.

How write Polish media, 52-year-old Marczak has served as deputy commander of the EU operational command Althea since September 2023. This mission created in 2004, designed to ensure the implementation Dayton Accords and general security in Bosnia and Herzegovina in cooperation with the country's authorities. Althea headquarters located at the same time in the Belgian Mons. It was there, according to official statements, that Marczak died.

When reports that the general actually died in eastern Ukraine began to spread outside the Russian-language segment of the Internet, Polish fact checkers became interested in them. IN comments For the FakeHunter project, part of the PAP news agency, the deputy head of the press service of the operational command of the Polish Armed Forces, Ewa Zlotnicka, confirmed that Marczak died of natural causes in Belgium. Fact checkers from Konkret24 in the same department directly stated: “All the information that appeared in the media that Brigadier General Adam Marczak died in Ukraine is not true.”

This can be confirmed thanks to the posts of the operational command of the Polish Armed Forces on social networks. April 5 department published on Facebook, photographs taken during the ceremony of loading Marczak’s coffin onto the plane that was supposed to take him from Belgium to his homeland. Four hours later on the same page appeared pictures of how the coffin was greeted in Warsaw.

The photographs from both publications show a Polish Air Force aircraft with number 018. From data The Freedar project shows that the unique identification number of the aircraft is 48D847. "Verified" tracked plane using this number through the Adsb.fi service - in the early morning of April 5, it actually took off from Poland, landed in Brussels, stood there for several hours, and then headed towards Warsaw. Marczak buried with military honors six days later in the Polish capital.

It turns out that, if you believe the Telegram channels mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, on March 26, the Polish general died as a result of an Iskander missile strike on Chasov Yar, and a week and a half later, when Marczak’s posthumous fate, judging by TGStat data, completely ceased to interest users of the platform, the Polish military sent a plane to Belgium to deliver the coffin with the supposed body of a high-ranking military man to his homeland, and at the same time held ceremonies on the runways in Brussels and Warsaw. In such circumstances, the version that a special flight was organized to cover up the real circumstances of Marczak’s death seems at least unlikely.

Finally, the Russian Ministry of Defense did not report Iskander strikes on Chasov Yar on March 26. The only information that can somehow fit the described circumstances is published that day around noon the daily summary. It states that “within 24 hours, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with high-precision, long-range sea- and land-based weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles against decision-making centers, SBU facilities, enterprises of the military-industrial complex, as well as places of deployment of Ukrainian national formations and foreign mercenaries.” However, there is no specificity in this statement and it is not possible to verify the authenticity of the statement. Moreover, almost identical lengthy formulations can be found in numerous posts of the Russian department (for example, from 21, 22, 23 And March 30), however, after them, Telegram channels did not write about the death of high-ranking military personnel from NATO countries in Ukraine. Ukrainian media also did not report attacks on Chasov Yar on March 26.

Thus, reports from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and some Russian media about the death of a Polish general near Bakhmut have no basis. All of them are based on either unnamed or anonymous sources. Information about Marczak’s death appeared on the verified pages of the Polish Armed Forces on social networks a few hours earlier. The statement made in these posts about the death of the general in Belgium is confirmed by independent sources. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense did not report an attack by Iskander missiles on Chasov Yar on March 26, although it regularly mentions attacks against “foreign mercenaries” on the territory of Ukraine.

Most likely, the creators of this story were hooked on the words from Marchak’s obituary that the general died “while he was not on duty.” This clarification probably means that the military man died during non-working hours (late evening or early morning), but Telegram channels saw in this phrase something like “not at his duty station” or “on vacation.” Subsequently, this interpretation was overgrown with completely fictitious details about Chasov Yar and Iskander and spread across social networks.

Cover photo: Dowództwo Operacyjne Rodzajów Sił Zbrojnych