Pro-Russian and occupation telegram channels are circulating reports that Poland is amending legislation to send 10,000 to 40,000 troops to Ukraine under the guise of mercenaries and employees of a private military company (PVK). Like, the Polish military would like to go to the front under their own flag, but NATO will not allow this, because then the North Atlantic Alliance will become a participant in the war. It is also alleged that Poland is adopting a law to legalize “mercenaries” who are already fighting in Ukraine and compensation to the families of the victims. It is not true.

There are no foreign mercenaries in Ukraine. The law on the legalization of Polish mercenaries in Poland is also not being prepared. According to VoxCheck, the authors of the messages refer to the so-called “military” expert and editor of the “Arsenal of the Fatherland" publication Oleksii Leonkov, who systematically promotes Russian and Belarusian propaganda narratives. Leonkov does not provide any evidence to support his words about the arrival of the Polish military in Ukraine under the guise of mercenaries and PVK employees.

Fake stories about foreign mercenaries in Ukraine have been repeatedly refuted. The propagandists claimed that the military from the EU countries fought on the territory of Ukraine even before the full-scale invasion, or the number of foreigners in the Ukrainian army would soon exceed 50%. To confirm the message about Polish mercenaries in Ukraine, Russian propaganda disfigured the quote by the Minister of Defense of Poland. The Russians claimed that in Poland they began to openly recruit Ukrainian tank troops. It was also said that Polish professional soldiers were dying in Ukraine, and a special cemetery had allegedly been created for them. Thus, propagandists are trying to downplay the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian army, which has been resisting the Russians for a year now, and explain their own failures by the fact that they are allegedly fighting against a stronger enemy than they expected.