This report follows Awaaz Punjab's coverage of the November 7 shooting in Krakow's Main Market Square, in which six people were killed, and of the gunman's death in hospital on November 9. It covers a separate, documented development: the coordinated wave of false claims that officials say followed the attack online. Read: Krakow gunman dies in hospital
Within minutes of the shooting in Krakow's Main Market Square on Saturday, November 7, false claims about the attack began spreading online, Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said. By about 6:00 p.m. that day — roughly three hours after the first shots — posts carrying false narratives had passed 200 million views, according to NASK, Poland's national research institute, whose Disinformation Analysis Centre monitors online manipulation.
Source: European Interest, reporting NASK and ministerial statements
NASK flagged more than 2,000 social media accounts spreading false narratives and reported them to the platforms for moderation, officials said. Many of the accounts were automated bots posting in four languages at once — Polish, English, French and Dutch — and analysts found traces linking some of them to Russia, including Cyrillic characters left inside otherwise Polish-language posts and direct references to the Russian Federation.
Source: Tech Times, reporting NASK findings
The false stories officials documented
According to NASK, the main false narratives targeted the Polish government, the European Union and Ukraine. One of the most viral claims — that the attacker was a Ukrainian soldier or mercenary — reportedly reached nearly 18 million people; investigators traced a version claiming the suspect wore a patch of Ukraine's Azov Brigade to the Telegram channel Shot, which reporting describes as linked to a Kremlin-connected Russian media group. Poland's Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has confirmed the attacker never served in the Polish armed forces and had no military ties. Another false claim, that the attack was staged to justify cancelling a protest or march, reached up to 14 million people, according to the figures cited by officials.
The Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported that some images of the perpetrator circulating online had been altered using artificial-intelligence tools. Gawkowski said more than 2,000 accounts were reported for blocking or moderation in the first 24 hours alone, and that the number was still rising; he urged people to check information against official sources and to report suspicious material to CERT Polska, the national computer emergency response team.
Source: Bulletin Observer, reporting Gawkowski and NASK
An emergency response on the evening of the attack
On the evening of November 7, Gawkowski convened an emergency meeting on the organised disinformation effort, and a team from Poland's Centre for Countering Disinformation was deployed to monitor the information space around the attack. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski also warned publicly of a significant wave of disinformation following what the government calls a terrorist attack. Officials say the earliest false narratives have faded as verified information from public institutions has emerged, but new false claims continue to appear.
The disinformation wave is a separate development from the criminal investigation itself. Six people — four women and two men — were killed in the square on November 7 and 16 people were wounded, including two police officers, police said. The suspected gunman, a 24-year-old Polish man whom officials said held radical far-right views, died in hospital on November 9 from police gunshot wounds. Investigators have still not publicly established a definitive motive, and prosecutors are also investigating the killing of the suspect's parents and sister, whose bodies were found at the family home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski.
Poland's experience shows how a mass-casualty attack now triggers a second, information-space contest within hours: NASK sent more than 65,000 reporting requests to social media platforms in the first half of 2026 alone and says platforms acted on fewer than 7 percent of them — leaving false claims free to gather hundreds of millions of views in the gap between flagging and takedown.
What happens next: NASK and the Centre for Countering Disinformation continue to monitor Krakow-related claims, officials say, and the government has signalled it will press platforms over slow moderation. Awaaz Punjab will update this coverage as Polish authorities publish further verified findings; claims about who organised the network remain allegations attributed to Polish officials and NASK, and neither Russia nor any named platform has responded in the reporting cited here.