Photo: President Of Ukraine from Україна, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

This article was first published by Truthmeter.mk (North Macedonia), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.

Truthmeter.mk has failed to find any visible, independent evidence (from Ukrainian government sources, Western intelligence, or peer-reviewed media reports) that supports this claim—that there is such a specific operational “escape plan” for Zelensky in Poland

We analyze a post on the social network Facebook which says:

Zelensky prepared a plan to flee from Ukraine to Poland.

The post also shares an article indicating that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has prepared a plan to flee from Ukraine to Poland, citing former advisor to the Pentagon chief, Douglas Macgregor as the source of this information.

“I think Zelensky could suddenly disappear. He could get on his plane and go to Poland,” he said.

And that’s all. There are no facts confirming that Zelensky prepared a plan to escape to Poland. The entire claim made in the post is based on a statement by a former advisor to the head of the Pentagon, who, in turn, offers an “opinion” for such a claim, not evidence.

What we were able to find is that Macgregor made this statement on November 8, 2025.

“I think Zelensky may suddenly disappear. He can get on his plane and fly to Poland. He must face the consequences of his actions. He should meet with the Ukrainian people, whose lives he has needlesly squandered, as well as with the Russians,” Macgregor said on Daniel Davis’ YouTube channel, EA Daily reports.

Here, there are no facts or evidence that would confirm the claim that Zelensky prepared some kind of escape plan.

Truthmeter.mk has failed to find any visible, independent evidence (from Ukrainian government sources, Western intelligence, or peer-reviewed media reports) that supports this claim—that there is such a specific operational “escape plan” for Zelensky in Poland.

Fact-checking media outlets note that Macgregor, whose opinion is used in the post as some kind of fact, is often used/quoted by Russian or pro-Russian sources to spread disinformation or propaganda.

As the Voice of America points out in its December 15, 2021 analysis “How Russia Uses Retired US Colonel’s Ukraine Misinformation for Domestic Propaganda,” when the United States was warning of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin was denying any such plans, RIA Novosti reported that it was unlikely that the Ukrainian army could withstand a Russian military invasion for more than three to four days. The agency cited an article in The National Interest written by Macgregor and former CIA officer George Beebe:

Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable to assume that Russian ground forces would reach their operational objectives along the Dnieper River in as little as seventy-two to ninety-six hours.

However, Russian troops were unable to achieve their goals in the Dnieper River basin even by mid-March 2022. As of January 2, 2023, Ukraine had liberated 40% of the territory that Russian forces occupied after the full-scale invasion that began in February 2022, notes Voice of America.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the post we are analyzing is untrue.