Speaking at a parliamentary conference in Warsaw titled "The War for Minds: Fear, Sabotage, Disinformation", Sikorski said the Kremlin sees this as a war against the entire Western world, aimed at destroying the foundations of democratic alliances across the region.
The Polish minister cited Russia's propaganda budget: around USD 1.4 billion in 2025 alone, and more than USD 6 billion since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
The EU, by comparison, spends "a few tens, at most a few hundreds of millions of euros" on counter-disinformation efforts at the bloc level.
"Our information ecosystem is under siege and we are not yet resilient enough," Sikorski said.
He was careful to draw a line between fighting disinformation and restricting speech.
Democratic societies "cannot, do not want to, and will not limit freedom of expression," he said, but added that such freedom does not come without accountability.
Sikorski also rejected the idea that the West is losing.
"We are not the weaker side in this confrontation. We have simply been the more polite one so far."
He singled out social media as the most effective platform for spreading falsehoods, with particular concern about its influence on young people, whose thinking and emotions are increasingly shaped by likes, shares and algorithms.
The real question, Sikorski argued, is not whether minors should have unrestricted access to social media, but how to make it safer for them.
(ał)
Source: PAP