One of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s first decisions after returning to power in 2023 was to dismiss the members of the commission for investigating Russian influence in Poland in the years 2007-2022. In doing so, the government removed the commission’s partial report, scrubbing it from all state-run online domains. The publication has now returned – the report has been posted on the website of the National Security Bureau.
Prof. Sławomir Cenckiewicz, head of the National Security Bureau and also a co-author of the report, decided to publish the partial report prepared two years ago from the work of the commission investigating Russian influence in Poland in 2007-2022. The document, therefore, returns to the public domain, and anyone can once again review the commission’s findings.
“Nearly two years after its online publication (29 November 2023), and simultaneously its removal from the website of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister from the special ‘Commission for the Investigation of Russian Influence’ section (in January 2024), we are publishing the full Report of the State Commission for the Investigation of Russian Influence on the Internal Security of the Republic of Poland in 2007-2022, devoted to the Contacts of the Military Counterintelligence Service with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation in the years 2010-2014 (a case study),”
the BBN website states.
As added, “the primary source of this report is the version published on the website of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. A little later, the report was expanded with an edition of the documents and included in the book by Sławomir Cenckiewicz and Michał Rachoń, Zgoda. Rząd i służby Tuska w objęciach Putina (Warsaw 2024, pp. 419–703).”
To recall: On 29 November 2023, the Sejm voted to dismiss eight members of the State Commission for the Investigation of Russian Influence on Poland’s Internal Security in 2007-2022: Sławomir Cenckiewicz, Andrzej Zybertowicz, Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Łukasz Cięgotura, Marek Szymaniak, Arkadiusz Puławski, Andrzej Kowalski, and Michał Wojnowski.
Earlier that same day, Prof. Cenckiewicz had convened an urgent press conference during which he presented the main theses of the partial report from the commission’s activities:
- The Military Counterintelligence Service succumbed to Russian influence,
- Russian influence on Polish counterintelligence did, in fact, occur,
- With the consent of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, an agreement was signed between the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
At the time, the Commission’s chairman, Prof. Sławomir Cenckiewicz, said that the decision to hold the conference and present the commission’s findings was prompted by motions submitted to the Sejm to dismiss its members. Cenckiewicz assessed then that this might be the commission’s “first and last” conference, which is why they decided to present the results of their work as quickly as possible.
He explained that the commission’s work focused on archival research in the collections of, among others, the Military Counterintelligence Service, the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Military Historical Bureau, the classified and unclassified offices of the Prime Minister, as well as the classified office of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw for military matters.
The commission operated from late August 2023 until the end of November 2023. Prof. Cenckiewicz acknowledged at the time that three months was a short period for comprehensive research and outlined the priorities the commission addressed - according to him, the most important subject of investigation was the relationship between the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the years 2010-2014.