False rumors about war preparations circulate ahead of Poland's Army Day parade

Warsaw and Gdynia are set to host military parades on Saturday, August 15th, marking Polish Army Day and the 106th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw. The capital city's parade will feature an impressive display of modern military hardware, including Borsuk and Rosomak combat vehicles, Abrams and K2 tanks, Krab howitzers, and Gladius drone systems. The air force will also be represented by F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, alongside Black Hawk, AW149, and AH-64 Apache helicopters.

Concurrently, a naval parade will take place in Gdynia's Bay of Gdańsk, with vessels from the Polish Navy participating. Preparations for these events have unfortunately become a target for disinformation campaigns. Videos showing military equipment moving through Warsaw streets, shared on social media platforms like X, have been accompanied by false claims that these movements are preparations for war.

One such post garnered over 300,000 views, spreading unsubstantiated rumors. The Ministry of National Defense had announced the movement of military equipment as part of the preparations for Polish Army Day. Rehearsals for the parade occurred between August 8th and 9th, with similar activities planned in Gdynia. The naval component's rehearsal was scheduled to begin on Tuesday afternoon, with ships in formation visible along the entire Tricity coast.

This is not the first time such footage has been misused. Last year, similar videos were falsely presented as additional equipment being sent to Poland by NATO. In September 2024, a French agency reported on a user falsely claiming tank movements in Warsaw were for combat against Russia, when the footage was actually from a 2024 military parade. Previous years have also seen false claims about Ukrainian flags appearing on military vehicles, when they were actually military pennants using blue and yellow colors, common to several Polish military units.