“I’m afraid to live here now.” In Poland, many Ukrainian refugees who live in the place since the beginning of their country’s invasion in Russia in February 2022, deplored the ascent in a xenophobic feeling against them. Some of them testify to this situation that will deteriorate to the BBC.
“At work, many people say that the Ukrainians come here and behave badly. My Ukrainian friends say they want to return because the Poles do not accept us,” an anonymous mother told the British media. His daughter says she is harassment at school.
Another child, for example, hinted at him: “He returns to Ukraine,” according to him. Then, “the girls from the top class began to complain that I was talking about Ukrainian. Then they pretended to fall to the ground, shouting: ‘Missile, on the ground!’ And laughing, “says the mother, who saw him enter” cry. “
Far from the isolated case, while Ukrainians are regularly victims of hostile attitudes in transport or racist comments online.
“Some Polish children refuse to play with them. They repel and insult them, making a kind of psychological barrier,” confirmed Lukasz Jakubowski two months ago in the Deutsche Welle.
And this, while young Ukrainians make integration efforts, particularly in terms of language according to this anti -discrimination coach of the Polish association “never again.”
“Recently, we have more and more situations of this type: Xenophobic abuses towards people who work in stores or hotels simply because they speak with a Ukrainian accent,” deplores activist Natalia Panchenko, director of the NGO “Stand with Ukraine” with the BBC.
Only one in two enamel for the reception of Ukrainians
This resentment began to feel in 2023. In March 2024, a swastika had been labeled on the siege of the ‘Ukraine House’ in Warsaw, reports the DW. An act of vandalism involved at that time in a context of tensions between kyiv and Poland against the opening of the European Ukrainian cereal market.
The massive manifestations on the subject took place in Poland, already contributing to raising an anti -UCranian feeling.
If almost a million Ukrainians are officially refugees, at least 2.5 million citizens currently live in Poland. Almost 7% of the country’s total population according to the statistics of the Warsaw Government.
According to a survey conducted in March 2025 by the Polish Center for Research on Public Opinion (CBO), only 50% of Poles are now favorable for the reception of Ukrainian refugees. Two years ago, this figure was 81%, recalls the BBC.
An investigation carried out at the end of 2024 by The reflection group of the Mieroszewski Center He already showed that the sympathy for the Ukrainians was in the free fall in Poland. Only a quarter of those questioned expressed a positive opinion about refugees in the invaded country, 30 % a negative opinion and 41 % a neutral opinion.
Half of the people interviewed said the help to refugees was too big. “Many companies fear we have big problems if several hundred thousand Ukrainians left the country suddenly,” said Ernest Wyciszkiewicz, director of the Mieroszewski Center in the DW.
It is this importance taken by the active population of Ukraine in Poland, who, according to him, is behind this resentment.
Presidential elections that exacerba xenophobia
It also exacerbated when the presidential elections approached, the first round of which it is scheduled for this Sunday, May 18. The Populist of the extreme right Mentzen, currently third in the surveys, does not hide his anti-Ucranian positions, for example.
In the second position, we find the curator Karol Nawrocki, who opposes the membership of Ukraine to the European Union and NATO, as well as to the financial aid to the refugees, but supports the effort of war.
The most Pro-Ukrainian candidate is Rafal Trzawski, a favorite of the coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, even if he has promised a reduction in social assistance for Ukrainians. But he did not particularly show his position on the subject to attract the centrist vote.
“He responds to the evolution of public opinion. The initial enthusiasm for supporting the victims of war fades, negative feelings take over and this issue really does not adapt to him,” said political analyst Marcin Zaborowski in the BBC.
Much more in the surveys, another candidate from afar, Grzegorz Braun, denounces on the other hand “Ukraine of Poland”. It is even the subject of a police investigation: a Ukrainian flag was torn from the facade of a town hall during one of its electoral demonstrations at the end of April.
What about Russian propaganda?
Last week, the Polish government finally warned against an “unprecedented attempt” of Russia’s interference in the Polish elections, transmitting “false online information of Polish citizens.” What Moscow denies.
“The main stories are that the Ukrainians steal money from the Polish budget, which do not respect us, that they want to steal and kill us and that they are responsible for the war,” said the BBC Michal Marek, who directs an NGO responsible for monitoring misinformation and propaganda in Poland.
“This information begins in the Russian speech telegram channels, then we see the same photos and the same text simply translated by Google Translate,” he explains.
Once the ballot is completed on June 1, it remains to be seen if this anti-Ucranian feeling will last or not.
Source: BFM TV
