AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.After its sometime allies were ousted in elections in Hungary and Serbia, Moscow has seized on Poland’s constitutional standoff in its effort to weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine.Protesting outside Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on Sunday.Credit...Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNov.

2, 2026, 1:34 p.m. ETWhen Poland’s centrist government sent the riot police late on Friday to seal off the country’s Constitutional Tribunal amid a long standoff over control of the court, its right-wing enemies accused it of staging a criminal “coup d’état.”Now, Russia has jumped in, too, fanning claims of a putsch by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and amplifying attacks on Poland’s pro-European government by hard-right politicians at home and abroad.Mr.

Tusk, long reviled by Moscow because of his strong support for Ukraine, sent police officers to the court after right-wing protesters gathered outside to denounce the suspension of its chief justice, an ally of Poland’s former governing party, Law and Justice.Dmitri Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now vice chairman of the Kremlin’s security council and a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, declared on Sunday that “a constitutional coup is underway in Poland.”Claims of a coup at the Constitutional Tribunal, the focus of a decade-long political struggle over the Polish judiciary, have dominated attacks in recent days on Mr.

Tusk by his right-wing enemies at home and Kremlin-friendly European politicians like Marine Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage of Britain and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands.Right-wing allies of the suspended chief justice, Bogdan Swieczkowski, who over the weekend still controlled the tribunal’s social media account, accused their rivals of “committing the crime” of a putsch,Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?

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