Poland’s armed forces shot down Russian drones after they violated national airspace during an attack on Ukraine overnight into Wednesday. Shortly after the incident, videos and images that purport to depict the incident have circulated online, as well as propaganda and disinformation from Russia, Polish politicians say. Prime Minister wrote on the social media platform X that Russian propaganda directly targets the security of Poland.
The Russian Foreign Ministry claims that Poland itself has been spreading “myths” about the drone incursion to “aggravate the Ukrainian crisis.” At the same time, pro-Kremlin media outlets and military bloggers are actively spreading disinformation about the drones, falsely asserting that there is no evidence that drones were shot down. Some Russian news outlets are even talking about a “provocation by Ukraine” or “unidentifiable objects.”
President , said the drones entering Polish airspace were Shahed drones, an that Russia commonly uses for attacking Ukraine. This is not the first time that a Russian Shahed drone was found in Poland. It was of what appears to be a Russian drone that had crashed into a field.
DW Fact Check looks at three examples of the numerous videos and claims about the drones that are being shared on social media.
Does this really show a drone attack?
Claim: A user on TikTok shares several videos allegedly showing Russian drone attacks on Poland. The description of one of the video reads “5 Minutes ago! Polish NATO Jets destroy record number of Shahed drones.” The videos all have the same look and some have hundreds of thousands of views.
Verdict: Fake
The video scenes do not show the recent drones that entered Polish airspace, but are from the video game “Arma 3.” Several users mentioned this suspicion in the comment section and referred to the video game. Through a , it is possible to track it back to a YouTube account sharing the exact same scenes as the TikTok user. The description says: “Arma 3 footage! Not real news!” The account regularly shares videos of combat operations in the form of video game simulations, which are often linked to the war in Ukraine.
So the footage does not show the real incident. Apart from that, the TikTok user also published a clip on their account showing a video game controller. Footage from the video game “Arma 3” has repeatedly been misused in other cases such as the and the war in Ukraine.
Is this a Russian drone in Polish airspace?
Claim: A user has shared a video of a drone flying. The date mentioned in the video is “Poland, 10 September 2025,” linking it to the current incident of Russian drones entering Polish airspace. The video was viewed more than 2.4 million times.
DW Fact check: False
The video does not show a Russian drone in Poland, and that’s quite easy to detect: An important first detail is the daylight in the video. The video shows a drone during the day, but the drones appeared overnight. The first airspace breach occurred at about It was dark at that time.
A reverse image search provides further information: The video has already appeared several times in the past, such as in February, when a Ukrainian website reported on Russian drone attacks, and again in July. So the video is not linked to the current situation. Still, we were not able to find the exact origin of the video.
Where did the drones crash?
Claim: A user on the shared a picture of a map with a drone crash site in Mniszkow. The post said it was one of the Russian drones that entered the Polish airspace in the early morning of September 10. That is almost 300 kilometers (180 miles) from the eastern Polish border, where the other drones were found. In the comments section, some users were wondering if this information was true.
DW Fact check: True
According to Poland’s Interior Ministry Polish authorities are on duty in Podlasie, Mazovia, Lublin and Subcarpathia. At least three crash sites of 19 drones in total were confirmed in eastern Poland. However, another drone was also found in Mniszkow, a town located hundreds of kilometers away from the other crash sites.
According to local authorities from Opoczno County, an object suspected of being a foreign military drone was discovered early in the morning of September 10 in a field in Mniszkow. It is true that a drone was found at this place, which matches the map attached in the social media post.
The photo from the X post can be found through the picture agency imago. It’s exactly the same photo showing the drone with the military number “ЫЫ31402” and it was found by the authorities in Mniszkow, according to imago. Several media outlets published the photo.
Dario Berrio Gil contributed to this report.
The post Fact check: Fake news after Russian drones downed in Poland appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
