Fake claims about “contaminated food from Ukraine” spreading in Polish social media

A new wave of anti-Ukrainian disinformation is spreading in the Polish segment of Facebook, including fake claims about “dangerous products from Ukraine.”

According to Ukrinform, this was reported on Facebook by the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

It is noted that manipulative posts call on consumers to boycott products with the code 482 – the standard EAN barcode for goods produced in Ukraine – allegedly because “all Ukrainian products are contaminated.”

“Such fakes feed on real cases where certain batches of products – not necessarily from Ukraine – fail to meet quality standards. But propagandists deliberately generalize isolated incidents to create a false impression of the ‘total danger’ of Ukrainian goods,” the CCD emphasized.

Polish institutions regularly publish warnings about specific products that do not meet safety norms, regardless of their country of origin. Therefore, generalizations such as “all Ukrainian food is poisonous” are a classic disinformation tactic.

“The manipulation involving the 482 code is part of an anti-Ukrainian campaign that has intensified in Poland since the beginning of the full-scale war. Its aim is to undermine trust between Ukrainians and Poles, sow hostility between the two nations, and increase pressure on Warsaw’s political decisions regarding support for Ukraine. This fully aligns with the goals of the Kremlin’s information policy in Poland,” the CCD noted.

As Ukrinform reported, a church in Sweden recently warned against cooperation with Belarusian nuns due to their ties to the Russian foreign intelligence and the Moscow Patriarchate.

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