On Wednesday evening, a fire broke out at the Starlink satellite communications ground station in Wola-Krobowska, in the Masovian Voivodeship. This is infrastructure that provides internet connectivity for this part of Europe, including Ukraine.
This was reported by RMF24 and Reuters.
Late on Wednesday evening, the owner of the plot of land where elements of the telecommunications infrastructure are located called the emergency services number. He said that the antennas had caught fire. A power generator was also damaged. Firefighters arrived at the scene and managed to put out the blaze.
According to preliminary findings by the services, the electrical distribution board may have been deliberately set alight. However, the possibility of a short circuit in the electrical system is also being considered.
Police officers from prevention units, as well as staff from the voivodeship police headquarters, were called to the scene. Poland’s Internal Security Agency and the Central Police Investigation Bureau were informed of the incident.
The ground station in Wola-Krobowska, together with a similar station near Kaunas in Lithuania, provides internet access for a significant part of Central and Eastern Europe.
In the view of Poland’s Minister for Digital Affairs, Krzysztof Gawkowski, much indicates that this fire was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the station’s operation.
“The operator of this station is Exatel — a state telecommunications operator that is one of the elements ensuring internet security and provides internet services, including to Ukraine,” Gawkowski said on TVP Info.
The politician explained that a possible shutdown of such stations would cause disruptions to internet access and could therefore affect, among other things, the operation of cash machines.
- Recently, a fire broke out at a facility belonging to the Polish defence company Grupa WB in Skarżysko-Kamienna. Later, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that it had been caused by deliberate arson.