Russian mass media spread information that Polish President Andrzej Duda allegedly stated that after Sweden and Finland joined NATO, the Baltic Sea would become the "internal sea" of the North Atlantic Alliance. Russian politicians then used this fake statement to accuse again Poland and other European countries of allegedly "provoking a confrontation between NATO and Russia."

In fact, Duda did not make such statements. As StopFake writes, at the NATO summit in Madrid, he expressed support for the entry into the North Atlantic Alliance of Sweden and Finland and spoke about strengthening the flank, the border of which with Russia will stretch for more than 1,600 kilometers. "The fact that Sweden and Finland are states of the Baltic Sea basin does not mean that the Baltic Sea allegedly became NATO's internal sea, the Russian media wrote. As Kremlin propaganda portrays, NATO is not a supranational organization claiming to seize territories. The North Atlantic Alliance is a military-political bloc, the main purpose of which is to deter possible military aggression against its member countries," the fact-checkers explained.