Dozens of Ukrainians living in Poland have told reporters that anti-Ukrainian sentiment has risen considerably in recent months. Many described experiencing abuse on public transport, bullying in schools, and xenophobic material online. Svitlana, a 31-year-old Ukrainian mother, shared her daughter’s experience of being bullied at school. “Two weeks ago, she came home and said ‘One boy said to me today, ‘Go back to Ukraine‘,” Svitlana recounted. The situation escalated when girls from a higher class started pretending to fall to the ground, shouting “Missile! Get down!” and laughing after Svitlana’s daughter spoke Ukrainian.
Svitlana fears reprisals and showed screenshots of messages with school staff where she complained about her daughter’s treatment. “At work, many people have been saying Ukrainians come here and behave badly. And my Ukrainian friends say they want to go home because Polish people don’t accept us. It’s frightening to live here now.” According to government statistics, at least 2.5 million Ukrainians live in Poland, comprising almost 7% of the total population.
Changing Public Opinion
When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, there was an outpouring of compassion from Poles. “It was amazing. Every day people were calling, asking, ‘How can we help?'” says activist Natalia Panchenko, head of the Warsaw-based ‘Stand with Ukraine’ Foundation. However, three years later, Natalia says she believes the majority of Poles still support Ukraine, but some don’t – and her organisation has noticed an upsurge of anti-Ukrainian online abuse.
“Recently, we have more and more of these kinds of situations… xenophobic [abuse] of people working in shops or hotels just because they speak with a Ukrainian accent.” Research suggests that Poland’s public opinion of Ukrainians is indeed worsening. According to a March 2025 poll by the respected CBOS Centre, just 50% of Poles are in favour of accepting Ukrainian refugees, a fall of seven percentage points in four months.
Election Campaign and Disinformation
Ukraine has become a hot-button political issue in Poland’s crucial presidential election campaign. Far-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, currently polling third, is virulently anti-Ukrainian and supports an “agreement” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The most pro-Ukraine candidate is front-runner Rafal Trzaskowski from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, although even he has promised a reduction in social welfare for Ukrainians. Michal Marek, who runs an NGO that monitors disinformation and propaganda in Poland, links such disinformation directly with the increase in anti-Ukraine sentiment in Poland.
“The main narratives are that Ukrainians are stealing money from the Polish budget, that Ukrainians do not respect us, that they want to rob and kill us and are responsible for the war,” he says. “This information starts in Russian-speaking Telegram channels, and, after that, we see the same photos and the same text just translated by Google Translate. And they are pushing [the material] into the Polish infosphere.”