Did sanctioned Belarusian state media influence Polish elections through social platforms? What has been checked

Publication date: 2026-07-06

Claim

Polish-language Radio Belarus channels on TikTok, YouTube, X and Facebook were ordinary foreign media and did not create a meaningful risk for Polish elections, despite EU sanctions against the Belarusian state broadcaster.

Verdict

Misleading. Available research and EU materials show a different picture: Radio Belarus is linked to the sanctioned state media structure Belteleradio, its Polish-language accounts gained millions of views during the 2025 Polish presidential campaign, and the content promoted distrust toward electoral institutions and selected political figures. This does not prove that the election result changed. It does show a real risk of foreign information interference and weak sanctions enforcement on platforms.

In brief

• DFRLab, Alliance4Europe and the Political Accountability Foundation reported that by 7 May 2025, accounts linked to Radio Belarus had published more than 7,790 videos and posts and received about 16 million views and at least 542,000 engagements.

• Researchers described narratives aimed at undermining trust in Polish electoral institutions, including claims about dependent election bodies and unfair media coverage.

• Science Feedback and partners had earlier written that after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU made it illegal to host or broadcast content from several sanctioned Russian and Belarusian actors to EU audiences.

• The European Commission describes very large online platforms as services that must assess and mitigate systemic risks, including risks linked to illegal content and impact on society.

• The checked materials do not support saying that these accounts determined the election outcome. The accurate conclusion is narrower: the visibility and reach of a sanctioned state broadcaster created a measurable risk for the information environment.

Why this matters

Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and other Belarusian neighbors are regular targets of Russian- and Belarusian-language information operations. When a sanctioned state broadcaster uses mass platforms and the local language of a neighboring country, audiences may read the material as normal political commentary rather than as part of a state-aligned campaign. For civil society and fact-checkers, it is important to separate documented foreign reach from unproven claims about direct voting impact.

What we checked

We checked three questions:

• Whether Radio Belarus was linked to a sanctioned Belarusian state media structure.

• Whether the Polish-language accounts had significant reach on platforms during the election campaign.

• Whether the sources support describing the case as an interference risk, rather than only ordinary foreign journalism.

Evidence

1. Radio Belarus is linked to a state broadcaster under EU sanctions

DFRLab writes that Polish-language Radio Belarus is part of the state-owned Belteleradio. The same publication says that on 3 June 2022, the EU included Belteleradio in a sanctions package against Belarus, describing the broadcaster as a main instrument of state propaganda.

The Council of the EU publicly announced new restrictive measures against Belarus in June 2022, citing internal repression and support for Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Public EU materials frame sanctions against Belarusian media not as a ban on opinions as such, but as a restriction on state propaganda structures linked to repression and aggression.

2. The reach was not symbolic

DFRLab, Alliance4Europe and the Political Accountability Foundation estimated that by 7 May 2025, accounts linked to the Polish-language edition of Radio Belarus had published more than 7,790 items on TikTok, YouTube, X and Facebook. Together, they received about 16 million views and at least 542,000 engagements.

The report separately states that the Radio Belarus TikTok account had more than 930 videos, more than 9.2 million views and about 320,000 engagements by 7 May 2025. According to an Exolyt-based estimate cited by the researchers, around 84 percent of its followers were based in Poland, while about 3 percent were in Belarus.

That does not look like a small archival channel. It points to visible presence in the Polish information space.

3. The themes concerned trust in elections and political figures

DFRLab researchers described Radio Belarus content as doing more than reporting on Polish politics. It promoted claims about compromised election legitimacy, dependence of the Supreme Court and National Electoral Commission, and media bias. The publication also described repeated interviews with political figures Maciej Maciak and Aldona Skirgiełło.

These materials do not prove that the audience changed its vote. They do show a set of themes typical for interference in an information environment: distrust in institutions, polarization, promotion of useful voices and restriction evasion through popular platforms.

4. Platforms had already been warned about sanctioned content

In December 2024, Science Feedback and partners wrote that after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU adopted sanctions on Russian and Belarusian actors supporting the war, including state media and propagandists. The report says that hosting or broadcasting their content to EU audiences became illegal, including on social media platforms.

The same report said platforms had been made aware both of the systematic nature of the problem and of certain suspected violations. This matters for the Polish case: it was not an isolated incident, but part of a wider enforcement problem in the online environment.

5. Under the DSA, large platforms must assess systemic risks

The European Commission explains that very large online platforms and search engines with more than 45 million users in the EU must follow the strictest DSA rules. Once designated, these services must identify, analyze and assess systemic risks linked to their services, and then put mitigation measures in place.

The Polish case shows why this matters. Even if one post looks like political commentary, the combined effect of thousands of items from a sanctioned state structure during an election period can become a systemic risk to public trust.

What remains unknown

• There is no public evidence that measures the exact effect of these accounts on voter decisions.

• It is not clear what internal checks all platforms carried out after researchers' notices.

• The available materials do not show a complete list of all accounts and reposts, so the real scale may have been higher or lower than researchers' estimates.

• More independent data is needed on how audiences saw and interpreted the material.

Conclusion

The claim that Polish-language Radio Belarus channels were ordinary foreign media without meaningful risk is misleading. Reliable research shows a link to a sanctioned state broadcaster, millions of views, narratives aimed at distrust in electoral institutions, and weak enforcement on parts of the platform ecosystem. At the same time, it is accurate to speak about risk and documented reach, not about a proven change in the election result.

Sources

• DFRLab: Banned, yet broadcasting: Sanctioned Belarusian state media influencing the Polish elections. https://dfrlab.org/2025/05/29/banned-yet-broadcasting-how-sanctioned-belarusian-state-media-is-influencing-the-polish-elections-on-social-media/

• Alliance4Europe: Banned, Yet Broadcasting: Sanctioned Belarusian State Media Influencing the Polish Elections. https://alliance4europe.eu/banned-yet-broadcasting

• Science Feedback: Sanctioned but Thriving: How Online Platforms Fail To Address the Widespread Presence of Entities Under EU Sanctions. https://science.feedback.org/sanctioned-but-thriving-how-online-platforms-fail-to-address-the-widespread-presence-of-entities-under-eu-sanctions/

• European Commission: DSA: Very large online platforms and search engines. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-vlops

• Council of the European Union: Sanctions against Belarus. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions-against-belarus/

Corrections and updates

No corrections had been made at publication time. If new public platform data, court files or official regulatory decisions appear, the article should be updated.