Russian propaganda passes fire in hardware store in Poland as arson of hub with military goods

Russian Telegram channels, pro-Kremlin media outlets, and English-language accounts on the social network X are circulating a video of a fire in the Polish city of Radom, claiming that Ukrainians were allegedly responsible for the incident. It is reported that on the night of May 30, a fire supposedly destroyed a large logistics hub in Radom (168 Warszawska Street - ed.), where military goods were stored for delivery to Ukraine. The local fire department allegedly reported that more than 6,000 square meters burned down, and that the damage to the property exceeded $120 million.

This is a fake. There was indeed a fire at 168 Warszawska Street in Radom, but it was a hardware store with a warehouse, not a logistics hub with military equipment.

Moreover, the scale of the fire was much smaller than the propagandists claimed. A Google Maps search revealed that the area of the store with a warehouse was slightly more than 1,000 square meters, not 6,000 square meters, as the authors of the fake claimed.

In a comment to Ukrinform, Justyna Jaśkiewicz, a spokesperson for the Radom police, confirmed that a warehouse for construction materials is located at that address and that a fire had actually broken out there that day. Investigators from the local Criminal Investigation Department are working to determine the circumstances of the emergency and who may have been involved in the incident.

At the same time, the police officer clarified that the fire area was not large and that only building materials partially burned, not any other objects.

The Radom fire department also confirmed the fact of the fire that day. However, they denied that they had reported a fire on an area of 6,000 square meters, noting that the fire covered an area of only about 300 square meters. According to the firefighters, pallets of building materials burned in this place and they are not aware of any assistance for Ukraine.

It can be concluded that the warehouse did not contain military aid to Ukraine, the fire area was actually small, and no one has been detained in the case.

Thus, Russian propagandists used the fact of the fire to blame Ukrainians for it in order to cause additional tension in Ukrainian-Polish relations. In addition, they attempted to spread a fake that Ukraine had lost a large batch of military aid that was being prepared for Kyiv.

Dmytro Badrak, Yuriy Banakhevych