Fake Campaign Tries to Pit Czechs Against Poles in the Cieszyn Silesia Region — Russia Suspected

A large-scale disinformation campaign aimed at stirring up conflict between residents of the Czech-Polish border region of Cieszyn Silesia (Těšínsko) is spreading across the Czech Republic and Poland. According to the news outlet Seznam Zprávy, thousands of Czech Facebook users have seen posters calling for a "demonstration" on Saturday at Freedom Square in Třinec, under the slogans "Těšínsko is Czech" and "We live here, we're staying here."

The event's organizer is a profile belonging to a certain Adam Sikora, who claims Poland allegedly intends to annex part of Czech territory. Dozens of other accounts argue beneath his post — some, writing in Polish, insist the land should belong to Warsaw, while others attack the Poles. A fact-check revealed that "Sikora" himself, along with most of the accounts arguing with him, most likely don't exist at all.

According to the AI-detection tool Resemble AI, "Sikora's" profile photo, uploaded two weeks ago, was generated by artificial intelligence. "Sikora" did not respond to journalists' questions. To appear more credible, the profile also posted an ad for a house for sale in the village of Ropice near Český Těšín — but Facebook itself flagged the house photos as AI-generated, and Halina Szczotka, editor-in-chief of the local magazine Zwrot, said she had never seen such a house in Ropice.

An Unregistered Rally and a Borrowed Logo

Despite its fabricated foundation, "Sikora" announced an actual demonstration near his supposed "house." The invitation describes the event as peaceful — "an informal evening for families, neighbors and colleagues" — but the tone in the comments is far more radical, with accusations that Poland is using "historical justice" as a pretext to seize Czech land.

Meanwhile, according to Třinec's city hall, no one has filed the official notification required by law for holding an assembly — the deadline for submitting an application expired on Monday. This was confirmed by city councilor Pavla Golasowská. The video promoting the rally unexpectedly ends with the logo of the KOVO trade union, which stated it has nothing to do with the organizers and that its branding was used without permission.

The Fakes Originated in Poland

The first traces of the campaign were found in Poland, where a network of fake accounts circulated a forged document supposedly sent to the Czech government by the Polish side — experts believe this document, too, was created using artificial intelligence. It first appeared under the name of a fake profile impersonating Břetislav Dančák, the Czech ambassador to Poland; in the initial version of the text, the creators mistakenly left the final sentence in Polish, later replacing the file with a corrected one.

The attackers then created a clone of the Czech radio website iRozhlas.cz on a nearly identical domain, lRozhlas.cz, differing by just one letter. The domain was registered in early August through a German company under the name "Jan Novák," using a nonexistent Prague address. The fake site published an article claiming Czechs were already massively selling property in the "disputed" region out of fear over territorial claims.

Later, hackers broke into the website of the Polish regional station PiK Radio, stealing a journalist's password, and published a piece with a headline claiming Poland planned to seize roughly 600 hectares of Czech territory — citing fabricated Czech sources. The article was later removed. The operation was documented by the Polish outlet CyberDefence24, and Poland's Central Cybercrime Bureau is also investigating.

Trail Leads to Russian Intelligence

Polish authorities believe this is a large-scale operation aimed at undermining Czech-Polish relations, and it is being examined by NASK, Poland's equivalent of the National Cyber Security Authority. According to sources cited by Seznam Zprávy, the Czech security community is also investigating the theory that Russia orchestrated the operation, and police will be brought into the case.

Opposition MP Andrea Hoffmannová, together with Pirate Party analyst Ján Konečný, has already filed a police report. "Crimes may have been committed — incitement to hatred or even illegal activity in the interest of a foreign power. We are obligated to counter this information operation and will not allow Czech-Polish relations to be destroyed," Hoffmannová said.

Eva Klusová, an analyst at the Academy of Sciences specializing in disinformation, calls the campaign effective precisely because it exploits genuine social fault lines in the region. The fakes are built around a grain of truth: Poland has indeed long and officially laid claim to about 368 hectares of Czech territory, but the matter is being resolved purely through diplomatic channels, and no unilateral seizure of land is anticipated. A similar narrative was previously exploited by the Telegram channel NeČT24, which, according to the Czech counterintelligence service BIS, has direct links to Putin's regime.

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Source: seznamzpravy.cz