Poland’s anti-Ukrainian turn spills into violence

WARSAW — Poland’s nationalist right is turning hostility toward the country’s roughly 1.5 million Ukrainians into a potent political issue, tapping into local resentment over social benefits and wartime history just over a year before a pivotal parliamentary election. During Poland’s 2025 presidential campaign, politicians began portraying Ukrainians in Poland as freeloaders straining the country’s public finances. This summer, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Poland’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle, in reaction to Zelenskyy’s decision to name a military unit after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA. The group murdered tens of thousands of Poles during an ethnic-cleansing campaign in 1943-1945, although it also fought against the Soviet Union. Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters against Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. But the nationalist camp, which Nawrocki seeks to lead, has sought to capitalize on tensions over the Ukrainian presence in Poland and the wartime massacres. Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is already intensifying ahead of the fall 2027 parliamentary election, when Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s broadly pro-Ukraine coalition will face the nationalist Law and Justice party and two other far-right parties. Polls show Tusk is far from certain of victory. The libertarian Confederation party denounced Ukrainians getting social welfare, while Gregorz Braun, the European Parliament member who leads the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown party, said: “The Kyiv regime is neither our ally nor our friend, it is our enemy,” during a summer gathering commemorating the wartime killing of Polish civilians by Ukrainians. Przemysław Czarnek, the candidate for prime minister from the Law and Justice party, said July: “Military aid to Ukraine must be suspended until that country changes its historical policy.” Rafał Pankowski, a sociology professor at Warsaw’s Civitas University and co-founder of the Polish anti-racism group Never Again, believes that while the Polish population is broadly supportive of Ukraine, fissures are beginning to show. “Solidarity with Ukrainians remains strong among many Poles, but populist anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has created fertile ground for attacks, turning a large and visible minority into a target and helping verbal hostility spill into violence. Russian propaganda seized on the opportunity, too,” he said. Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar is worried about politicians using Ukraine as a wedge issue. “Part of Poland’s political class is trying to exploit the Ukrainian issue for political gain. Some focus on developments in Ukraine, others on the behavior of Ukrainians living here. One way or another, Ukraine features in the narrative of every political group — it is simply packaged differently,” he told POLITICO. In the line of fire The latest Polish-Ukrainian row might have faded from the headlines, but the fear it helped instill has not. Vasyl Bodnar is worried about politicians using Ukraine as a wedge issue. | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images “I’ve lived in Poland for about 10 years. I came here to study and stayed,” said Olena, a guide at a Warsaw cultural institution whose name POLITICO changed at her request because she feared for her safety. “It took me quite a while to integrate, but I have never felt as alienated as I have over the past year. I have become afraid to speak Ukrainian in public, and I have started worrying about my friends and loved ones who live here or come to Poland to visit,” she said. Opinion polls show a decided shift against Ukrainians. In an annual survey by the state-run pollster CBOS, sympathy among Poles toward Ukrainians fell from 51 percent in 2023 to 29 percent in January 2026, while antipathy rose from 38 percent to 43 percent over the last year. Another CBOS poll found that 45.4 perce