Polish officials convene emergency meeting over alleged plot against prime minister and defence minister

Polish authorities gathered on Sunday at the Internal Security Agency's Counter-Terrorism Center after police were alerted to a potential assassination attempt targeting Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Galecka said in a post on X.

The meeting was called while the country remains on heightened alert following three knife attacks at schools within four days, which left at least one person dead and injured numerous others, including children. The incidents involved a 19-year-old student in Mazovian province, a 15-year-old who killed a caretaker in Leszczydol-Nowiny, and a 21-year-old woman who wounded three women at an adult-education school in Warsaw.

Police have detained 117 individuals for carrying knives or threatening school attacks and have inspected roughly 64,000 schools, primarily in the central Mazovian region. Cybercrime investigators reported no evidence of a coordinated social-media challenge behind the violence.

"We are not dealing with any group organized on a big scale," Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the government crisis meeting, describing the incidents as "spontaneous actions" driven by a growing online glorification of violence.

Tusk added that while some detainees are linked to the ultraright milieu, the wave appears to stem from a broader "civilizational phenomenon" of exposure to violent content in video games and crime stories, noting an increase in online searches for Nazi or far-right material and for "mass killers who have become idols online."

He said police checks at schools will continue next week to prevent copycat attacks and to address what he called "stupid and unsafe thoughts" among children.

Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, is also contending with heightened security concerns from hybrid Russian attacks in recent months.