Man detained after making “serious” threats against Tusk and minister

A suspected plot to assassinate Poland’s top leadership has been disrupted after police arrested a man accused of threatening Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Mr Tusk said.

“The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Mr Tusk wrote on X, commending officers for their “swift and decisive action”.

The arrest followed an earlier alert from Poland’s interior ministry, after security services called an extraordinary meeting to assess information pointing to a potential attack on ⁠Prime Minister Tusk and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Special services spokesperson Jacek Dobrzynski said he could not provide further details, but stressed that investigators were treating the report as “deadly serious”.

“We are talking about a high probability of these threats being carried out,” he told reporters.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Galecka said the State Protection Service — tasked with safeguarding senior officials — had passed an email containing information about the possible attack to police.

Private broadcaster Radio Zet also reported that police had received an email warning ⁠about the threat.

Police are seen outside the school where a 15-year-old boy fatally stabbed the caretaker

Poland records relatively little violent crime compared with many countries, but the political climate remains sharply divided, and the nation has faced heightened security concerns linked to its proximity to the war in Ukraine.

In August, police detained a 23-year-old man accused of calling for the assassination ⁠of senior Polish politicians.

In 2024, Mr Tusk said he received threats ⁠after an assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The latest development comes as Polish authorities are already operating on heightened alert in the wake of a spate of violence in schools that culminated in the killing of a caretaker on ‌Thursday.

Mr Tusk has said the attacks in schools were “spontaneous acts” fuelled by the online “glorification of violence”.

Three attacks at schools in Mazovian province in central Poland took place within four days, leaving one person dead and many injured, including children.

Police hugging children outside the school where a 15-year-old boy fatally stabbed the caretaker

By this morning, police had detained 117 people nationwide for carrying knives or other dangerous weapons, or for making threats to attack schools or fellow students. Officers also checked some 64,000 schools.

“We are not dealing with any group organised on a big scale,” Mr Tusk said during a crisis meeting with government and security services.

“These are very often spontaneous actions inspired by online activity.

“In the past years and months, we have noted – globally and in Poland – a rise in the fascination with violence.”

A post on X shows a teenager in a mask in Warsaw ahead of what was called ‘bloody Friday’, which prompted the closure of several schools

Mr Tusk said the incidents could be linked to what he called “nihilistic violence” — a term authorities use for attacks motivated by a nihilistic worldview and misanthropy rather than clear political aims.

In Poland’s case, he said, “some of the people detained are active in the ultra-right environment”.

He added that officials have tracked intensified online searches for Nazi material, as well as interest in “mass killers who have become idols online”.

Mr Tusk described the trend as a broader “civilisational phenomenon”, arguing that children can begin with video games — even mundane ones — or true-crime stories and then be drawn into progressively more violent content.