Credit: daily_creativity / Shutterstock.com A fire broke out late on Wednesday at a Starlink ground station south of Warsaw that helps carry internet traffic to Ukraine. Poland’s digital affairs minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, said on Thursday that it looked like sabotage. Speaking to public broadcaster TVP Info, Gawkowski said the blaze appeared designed to knock the station offline and cut internet access for several bodies, including Ukraine’s armed forces. He told the broadcaster it could be part of a new phase of hybrid warfare, and that the station was still working.
The site is in Wola Krobowska, about 40km from the capital, and it is run by Exatel, a state-owned telecoms company, and it links Starlink’s satellites to ground networks in Poland and beyond. The fire mainly hit the station’s power supply, a distribution board and a generator, Euronews reported. Firefighters put it out, and no one was hurt. Investigators are more cautious than the minister.
According to TVP World, firefighters’ early findings point to a deliberate fire, but an electrical fault has not been ruled out. Police are leading the case, and Poland’s Internal Security Agency has been told. Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the minister in charge of the security services, told TVN24 that not every arson attack is sabotage. Police were looking at every option, from arson to a short circuit, he said.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia’s role had not been proven, but that the fire should be treated as part of hybrid warfare, according to Reuters. Poland has accused Russia of sabotage on its soil several times since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The station matters far beyond Poland. Gawkowski warned that losing such a hub could cut internet access in parts of Poland, Europe and Ukraine, and even affect cash machines.
Warsaw also pays for Starlink for much of Ukraine’s military, which relies on the service at the front. That dependence on one US provider is part of why the EU is building its own sovereign satellite network.
