Polish Police Say They Received Information About Possible Plot to Attack Tusk and Defense Minister

Polish police said Sunday, Oct. 11, that they received information about a possible plot to attack Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who is also deputy prime minister.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Galecka announced it in a post on X. She said Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński and Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister-coordinator of special services, had "ordered action to be taken in this matter."

The emergency meeting

Representatives of the police, the State Protection Service and the Internal Security Agency were set to meet at 11 a.m. local time at the agency's Counter-Terrorism Centre.

Afterward, Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for the minister overseeing Poland's intelligence services, said: "We take this matter extremely seriously." He said authorities consider there is a high probability the threats would have been carried out.

Dobrzyński said the information first reached the State Protection Service, which passed it to police. He gave no further details. He also said the services are receiving a growing number of threats of various kinds every month.

Government spokesperson Adam Szłapka called the threat "exceptionally concerning." He said Tusk learned of it first thing Sunday morning.

Polsat News quoted Dobrzyński as saying further action was decided at the meeting. Neither the nature of that action nor the form the threat took has been disclosed.

What is not established

Radio Zet reported that police received an email containing information about the threat. No official has confirmed that, and no one has publicly identified a suspect or a group behind it.

Authorities have not disclosed further details about the reported threat, and no arrests tied to it have been announced.

It is also unknown whether this is a credible operational plot or a hoax. Dobrzyński's "high probability" language points toward the first, but officials have not published the evidence behind it.

A country already on edge

The warning comes during a tense week. Three attacks at schools in Mazovia province, where Warsaw sits, came within four days.

On Wednesday, Oct. 7, a 19-year-old vocational school student wounded nine people, including students, teachers and passersby, with a sharp object. He was arrested nearby.

On Thursday, Oct. 8, a 15-year-old killed a school caretaker and wounded two others in a knife attack at his former school.

On Saturday, Oct. 10, a 21-year-old woman wounded three people at a post-secondary school in Warsaw.

No official has linked those attacks to the threat against Tusk and Kosiniak-Kamysz. They are separate events that happened in the same week.

The Russia question

In September, Tusk warned that Russia was likely to intensify hybrid attacks on NATO's eastern flank. He said Moscow was planning strikes with drones or rockets on European countries that back Ukraine, Poland among them, to weaken Western support for Kyiv.

Moscow has denied any such plans.

No Polish official has tied Sunday's threat to Russia or any foreign actor. Warsaw's own warnings about hybrid pressure are the backdrop, and the backdrop is not evidence of who sent this.

What comes next

The government has said further action was decided at the meeting but has not described it. Officials have not said whether the schedules or protection of Tusk and Kosiniak-Kamysz have changed.

Where the information came from is still unclear. Whether it was an email, an intelligence tip or something else will shape whether this ends with an arrest or a false alarm. Dobrzyński has said the media will be informed should a press briefing be scheduled.