Polish Premier Blames Russia for Cyberattack on Energy Facilties

Poland fought off a wave of cyber threats from Russia which targeted its energy infrastructure in December, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

A series of attacks in the last days of the month hit two power plants and renewable energy facilities, he told reporters on Thursday.

The attacks weren’t “massive” and wouldn’t have caused a total blackout, but had they succeeded 500,000 people would have lost electricity, according to the premier.

Read more: Poland’s Tusk Says Act of Sabotage Behind Railway Explosion

Tusk said he had no doubt about who was ultimately responsible. “There are many indications that these attacks had been prepared by groups directly linked to the Russian special services,” he told a news conference in Warsaw, though stressed the difficulty of identifying the culprits.

Concerns over hybrid threats from Moscow are especially acute in Poland, a frontline member of the European Union and NATO’s eastern flank which shares borders with Russia and Kremlin ally Belarus. The country is a staunch supporter of Kyiv and became a vital artery for military aid flowing to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Since then hacker groups, which the Polish authorities said were often linked to the Kremlin, have repeatedly targeted critical infrastructure across the country, hitting hospitals, water treatment facilities and the sewage system.

Tensions escalated last September when a swarm of Russian drones breached Polish airspace, underscoring growing alarm over Moscow’s willingness to test NATO’s resolve. In November, Warsaw accused Moscow of orchestrating explosions along a key rail link to Ukraine.

Poland is now one of the most exposed countries when it comes to cyberattacks. It ranks third globally for ransomware attacks and second for malicious email threats, according to a report by cybersecurity firm Eset covering the second half of 2025.

Separate findings from Microsoft’s 2025 Digital Defense Report place Poland as the third most-targeted country in Europe for politically-motivated cyberattacks — behind only Ukraine and the UK.

When asked about the impact of December’s cyberattacks, Poland’s grid operator PSE told Bloomberg News it had not observed any cybersecurity incidents that could have significantly impacted energy supply across the country.

Photograph: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk; Photo credit: Omar Marques/Getty

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