Did the United Kingdom send Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets to Poland to interfere with the upcoming general elections in Poland? No, that's not true: The UK was sending the jets to Poland for a joint NATO exercise with other NATO member states like Spain and Italy.
The claim appeared in comments on a video (archived here) which was published on TikTok on September 2, 2023, with a caption in Czech, translated by Lead Stories staff as: "Britain has sent Eurofighter Typhoons to Poland to provide security ahead of the general elections that are planned for October 15." The comments included the statement below in Czech, translated by Lead Stories:
This is outrageous. So the independent state cannot have its own elections without someone screwing it over. This is disgusting and this is supposed to be a democracy.
They want to corrupt it.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Oct 3 06:54:23 2023 UTC)
The UK has sent four Royal Air Force Typhoons fighter jets to Poland to conduct a joint exercise with aircrafts from other NATO countries, the UK Ministry of Defense said in a press release on September 1, 2023. According to the Ministry, the Typhoons remain for two weeks in Poland. They practice dog fighting tactics and attacks on targets out of sight. According to the UK Ministry, the deployment is "just one of many joint exercises" with Polish forces, including the UK's permanent deployment of hundreds of troops to Poland within the scope of UK operation CABRIT. This operation is part of the NATO strategy to secure its Eastern flank. Poland borders with Russian ally Belarus as well as with Kaliningrad, a Russian province.
The Typhoon jets arrived in Poland ahead of the Warsaw Security Forum on October 3-4, 2023, where UK ministers, including the UK Defense Minister James Heappey attended, according to the Defense Ministry and a Royal Air Force statement. None of the statements by UK authorities on the deployment of fighter jets to Poland mentions the upcoming general elections in Poland scheduled for October 15, 2023. NATO has also repeatedly stated that it never interferes with the internal political affairs of its members and that the purpose of its existence is to protect democracy.
