Polish ruling party reports attack on its website before election

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WARSAW (Reuters) -A group of Russian hackers attacked the websites of the Polish ruling Civic Platform party, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday, two days before a presidential election.

“Two days before the elections, a group of Russian hackers operating on Telegram attacked the websites of the Civic Platform. The Left and (agrarian party) PSL websites are also targeted,” Tusk wrote on social media platform X.

“Services are conducting intensive activities in this case. The attack is ongoing.”

European governments have been on high alert for signs of electoral interference since Romania cancelled a presidential election as it was under way in December after allegations of Russian interference, which Moscow denied.

The Russian embassy in Warsaw said it had no comment on the issue.

The head of Tusk’s chancellery, Jan Grabiec, disclosed the attack earlier, without saying who was suspected of being behind it.

The attack happened hours before the start of a campaign blackout before the first round of Sunday’s presidential election.

Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a senior member of PO, is pitted against historian Karol Nawrocki, who runs Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, and far-right nationalist Slawomir Mentzen.

Civic Platform’s IT systems were also hit by a cyberattack in April.

(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Timothy Heritage, William Maclean)