Firefighters responded at approximately 9 p.m. on Wednesday to a ground station in Wola Krobowska, south of Warsaw, owned by Polish state telecommunications operator Exatel. The facility provides terrestrial connectivity for Starlink's satellite constellation across Central and Eastern Europe, including to Ukraine, where Starlink terminals remain critical wartime infrastructure. Police and Internal Security Agency (ABW) officers were dispatched after suspicions of deliberate ignition. Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski declared it an arson attack targeting "critical telecommunications infrastructure that influences internet operation." He told TVN that "the modus operandi in this case is clearly Russian" and called it "another element of the hybrid warfare we are facing." In a separate TVP interview, he acknowledged that it remains "impossible to say" definitively whether Russia was behind it. The facility is not a minor relay point. Defence24 reports that this ground station, alongside one in Lithuania, serves as the terrestrial anchor for Starlink's entire Central and Eastern European coverage. Without ground stations, Starlink's satellites cannot route data to the broader internet — they are the single physical chokepoint in an otherwise distributed system. The attack sits within a documented pattern. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism identified 151 sabotage incidents across Europe since 2022, with 31 occurring in Poland — more than any other country. Earlier this month, a fire struck a WB Electronics drone plant in Poland that supplies Ukrainian and Polish armed forces. Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated there was "no doubt" that fire was deliberate and likely Russian-directed. The timing compounds the signal. On the same day as the Wola Krobowska fire, a Russian helicopter briefly entered Polish airspace. In July, a Russian missile landed in a field in eastern Poland after crossing into Polish airspace. The Polish government has warned in recent months that Russia is planning to escalate hybrid actions including sabotage, disinformation, and airspace violations. Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek told RMF that "this could be an act of sabotage" and that authorities are taking that into account. Security services spokesman Jacek Dobrzyński confirmed that "everything points to arson" while cautioning it was too early to assign motives definitively. The structural vulnerability is clear: two ground stations — Poland and Lithuania — anchor Starlink connectivity for an entire region at war. Hitting one doesn't just degrade Polish telecom; it threatens Ukraine's battlefield communications. Russia doesn't need to destroy the satellite constellation. It needs to destroy two buildings.
