{"id":4864,"date":"2026-05-04T11:54:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/4864\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:54:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:54:03","slug":"donald-tusk-claims-russian-backed-crypto-firm-influenced-polish-politics-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/4864\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Tusk claims Russian-backed crypto firm influenced Polish politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a cryptocurrency firm built with “Russian money” had sponsored Polish politicians from the former national-conservative government as well as a CPAC ( Conservative Political Action Conference<\/a> ) event in Poland last year, where Kristi Noem, the former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, openly backed<\/a> nationalist Karol Nawrocki to win the Polish presidency.<\/p>\n

Tusk was speaking on Friday in the Polish parliament, before a parliamentary vote to overrule Nawrocki who had rejected regulations of the Polish crypto-asset market. Nawrocki has vetoed two separate attempts by the liberal government to regulate this market in the past six months.<\/p>\n

Tusk claimed that the blocking of regulations by some Polish politicians indicated they were serving the interests of a specific company, Zondacrypto, which had in the past provided them with financial support and which had links with Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe source of this company\u2019s financial success is not only Russian money linked to the so-called Bratva, one of the most important mafia groups in Russia, but also to Russian secret services,\u201d Tusk said in his parliament speech.<\/p>\n

Tusk said Zondacrypto at the same time \u201csponsors political and social events in Poland and promotes very specific political forces,\u201d including by financing politicians of the formerly governing Law and Justice as well as of the far-right Confederation.<\/p>\n

Tusk also said that Zondacrypto had been a strategic sponsor of a meeting of The Conservative Political Action Conference, the United States\u2019 premier conservative gathering, in Rzeszow, eastern Poland, in March 2025. That meeting took place just five days before presidential elections in Poland which were a tight confrontation between a candidate of Tusk’s liberal camp and Nawrocki, backed by Law and Justice.<\/p>\n

During that meeting, Kristi Noem, then the U.S. homeland secretary, described<\/a> the liberal candidate as “an absolute train wreck of a leader” and Nawrocki, who was attending the CPAC meeting, as someone who would lead Poland in a style similar to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need you to elect the right leader,\u201d Noem, a prominent Trump ally, said in a speech at the event. \u201cYou will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tusk also said that, when deciding to veto the new crypto regulations, Nawrocki was \u201cfully aware\u201d of all the details concerning Zondacrypto.<\/p>\n

In response to Tusk’s accusations, Zbigniew Bogucki, the head of the president’s office, said Nawrocki was not opposed to the need to regulate the crypto-assets market but just to the \u201cflawed regulatory model\u201d proposed by the government.<\/p>\n

Confederation leader S\u0142awomir Mentzen said the new legislation would have \u201cdestroyed the Polish cryptocurrency market.”<\/p>\n

The government says the new regulations are meant to bring Poland in compliance with European Union rules on crypto-assets.<\/p>\n

Zondacrypto did not reply to questions from AP about Tusk’s accusations but it told Polish media earlier this week it was cooperating with Polish authorities investigating accusations against it.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a cryptocurrency firm built with “Russian money” had sponsored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[500,1900,64,329,1901,484,2031,122,843,331],"class_list":{"0":"post-4864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-tusk","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cryptocurrency","10":"tag-donald-tusk","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-industry-regulation","13":"tag-legislation","14":"tag-poland-european-union-cryptocurrency-market","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}