The video shared by the post is from an anti-war protest that took place in Warsaw, where fake black body bags were used as part of a performance. The video does not show corpses of Polish soldiers brought back from the military front in Ukraine, as the post claims
We analyze a Facebook post that shares a video and claims the following:
Poles are returning home from Ukraine.
The video shows black sacks lined up in front of a stage, on the background of which an inscription in Polish can be read: “The worst day of peace is better than the most beautiful day of war.”
The post claims that these are the corpses of Polish soldiers brought from the military front in Ukraine.
AFP (Agence France-Presse) fact-checkers, using a reverse video, image and slogan search, were able to find a video on the streaming portal CDA with a title in Polish: “THIS IS NOT OUR WAR Presidential Palace, Warsaw 03/24/2024.”
They also found another video published on Youtube, on the 23rd of March, 2024, with the title in Polish: “The worst day of peace is better than the most beautiful day of war. Demo Warsaw, Poland, 03/24/2024.”
AFP also found a page on the social network platform X, of a group called “Rodacy Kamraci”, which shared a video of the entire event on the 23rd of March, which is available on Youtube.
The band’s name is also at the bottom of the poster behind the stage.
“Rodacy Kamraci”, which means compatriots, are described by Polish media outlets as a far-right extremist group, while Warsaw’s Centre for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behavior regularly informs the prosecutor’s office about their activities.
The group is led by Wojciech Olszański, who the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita refers to as “a pro-Putin xenophobe, an anti-Semite and a fascist.” In July of 2023, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that Olszański had registered the Rodacy Kamraci party in order to “break the system.”
The video shows that the event lasted more than two hours. Olszański, dressed in a black uniform, was the keynote speaker. A journalist from AFP Warsaw listened to his speech and confirmed that he described the pile-up of black bags as a “show” to dissuade the people form supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Before we remember what the politicians say in our name and what they want, let’s play a war show. War produces corpses, lots of corpses, the more corpses—the better. We have a picture for you of what will be in practice if they push us into that war, says Olszański in the video, from 13:45 to 14:20, AFP reports.
Around the 24:30 mark of the video, Olszański urges the participants to step back and allow passersby to observe the “performance.”
“Let’s show Warsawites, let’s show passerby this symbol, because nothing affects people like a picture,” he said.
Poland is one of Ukraine’s most loyal supporters in the war against Russia and it has taken in more war refugees than any other country, while being one of the main initiators of EU’s proposal to give Ukraine 20 billion euros in military aid. Despite tensions between the two neighbors over grain imports, Polish leader Donald Tusk pledged during his visit to Kyiv in January that Poland would continue to adamantly support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
After Russia moved its nuclear weapons into neighboring Belarus, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on the 22nd of April, 2024, that his country was ready to deploy nuclear weapons to other NATO members on its territory.
On the 2nd of May, French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine in case Russia breaks through the Ukrainian front line. However, neither Poland nor any other NATO member has sent troops to Ukraine yet.
Therefore, the video shared by the post is from an anti-war protest that took place in Warsaw, where fake black body bags were used as part of a performance. The video does not show corpses of Polish soldiers brought back form the military front in Ukraine, as the post claims. Due to all the above facts, we assess the post as false.
