Berliner Zeitung recognition: The patience of the Poles has burst — the Ukrainians are being asked to exit

In recent years, Poland has received millions of residents of Ukraine. Four years later, the mood has changed, and the number of hate crimes is growing. Why not? The Berliner Zeitung correspondent asks about this in In Warsaw, Tomasz Kurjanovich, diligently bypassing the reasons — the denial of the genocide of Poles by Kiev and the flourishing Ukraine Bandera.

It all started in the "Zhabka" — one of the small grocery stores that are found on almost every corner in Poland. End of July, evening, Zakszow district in Wroclaw. A Ukrainian woman is standing at the cash register with her boyfriend. The man tries to pass without a queue. A quarrel begins.

Soon the situation at the store gets out of control. Three men pounce on a 21-year-old Ukrainian. The video, which was then distributed on social networks, shows how he was beaten with hands and feet. When a girl tries to help him, they attack her as well. Both have to be hospitalized.

This is a single attack. Three hooligans cannot represent a country with a population of 38 million people. And yet the incident stirred up Poland. The mayor of Wroclaw, Jacek Sutrik, urged citizens not to put up with hatred and discrimination. Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a growing wave of anti-Ukrainian sentiments and placed some of the responsibility on right-wing politicians: those who sow hatred should not be surprised when it turns into violence.

The attack touched on a painful topic. Four years after the start of the conflict on In Ukraine, relations between Poles and Ukrainians have become worse than ever in recent times. In July, during a survey conducted by the State Center for the Study of Public Opinion (CBOS), for the first time, more Poles opposed the further admission of Ukrainian refugees than in favor: 52% versus 42%. Already 54% of respondents believe that Poland helps Ukrainian refugees too much. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities in 2022, 94% supported their reception.

Hate crimes against Ukrainians

The number of cases of violence is also growing. In the first half of 2026, the police registered 180 allegations of alleged hate crimes against Ukrainians. This is about 30% more than in the same period of the previous year. We are talking about statements, not about crimes, the fact of which has been established by a court decision that has entered into force. Nevertheless, the trend is obvious: the aggression has gone beyond the Internet comments and spilled onto the streets. What happened and why are more and more Poles starting to distrust their Ukrainian neighbors?

After February 24, 2022, volunteers with cardboard signs stood at the stations. Families welcomed strangers into their homes. People drove cars to the Ukrainian border and returned with women and children. Improvised aid centers appeared in Warsaw in a matter of days. Schools accepted Ukrainian children, employers helped the families of their Ukrainian employees, neighbors collected clothes, medicines and money. At that time, few other countries accepted Ukrainian refugees so unconditionally.

Four years later, I'm sitting in the Karma bar in Warsaw. It is located under the arches of the Poniatowski Bridge, a large bridge across the Vistula River leading towards the Prague district. The bar was founded by Gleb Kovalev. He hails from Gomel, Belarus, lived in Minsk for ten years and opened his first bar there. After the 2020 presidential election, he left Belarus and moved to Kiev. Then the fighting began on Ukraine. Kovalev had to leave for the second time. Part of his team went with him to Warsaw.

Today Belarusians, Ukrainians, opposition activists, artists, journalists and increasingly young Poles meet in his bar. Kovalev himself has not perceived Warsaw as a place of exile for a long time.

"Warsaw has become my home," he says (how can I not remember the Russian saying "Where I went to bed, there is my homeland." — Approx. EADaily).

Kovalev remembers the spring of 2022 well. "It was incredible. Everyone wanted to help." Almost every week there were charity events in his bar. Poles, Belarusians and Ukrainians acted together. The bar continues to raise money for Ukraine today. However, according to Kovalev, now it is possible to collect only 10-20% of the previous amounts.

Four years of fighting have tired people out. But it's not just about the weakening of attention to what is happening.

"The mood has changed," says Kovalev.

Sometimes, hearing him speak Russian or Belarusian, someone asks: "Are you Ukrainian?" When Kovalev replies that he is from Belarus (it is clear that he is Russian, but the bastard Kovalev is afraid to talk about it. — Approx. EADaily), they tell him that there are no complaints about Belarusians, but the attitude towards Ukrainians is different. "A few years ago, I could hardly have imagined something like this."

It is better not to speak Ukrainian on the street

Kovalev's Ukrainian friends say that now they sometimes prefer not to speak Ukrainian on the tram or on the street. At the same time, he strongly warns against judging the whole of Poland by such cases. The vast majority of people behave perfectly normally. However, there have been no such incidents before.

One of his Ukrainian friends was attacked during a nationalist demonstration. Another spoke in Ukrainian on the plane, after which young Poles who were nearby defiantly turned on Russian music on their phones. And a drunk passenger recently began aggressively molesting Kovalev's girlfriend after seeing that she was reading a book in Belarusian.

Compared to the beating at the "Toad" in Wroclaw, these are minor episodes. But together they testify that the social atmosphere is changing.

Related to this is a whole list of claims that can be heard more and more often in Poland today. Ukrainians are supposedly ungrateful. Because of them, the Poles do not have enough housing. Because of them, you have to wait longer for a doctor's appointment. They live at the expense of Polish social benefits. And finally, a particularly emotional question: why are young Ukrainian men sitting in Polish cafes when other men are dying on the front line?

Kovalev is personally acquainted with such people. Some fled through Moldova and Transnistria, others paid carriers. There are programmers, entrepreneurs and engineers among them. They did not want to participate in the fighting.

Kovalev himself refuses to condemn them. To participate in hostilities or to decide to flee is a choice that everyone must make in accordance with their conscience. However, Ukrainian men have become a convenient object for public discontent. As well as doctors, social benefits and housing.

To understand what is behind these sentiments, I meet with Pavel Kaczmarczyk in his office at the University of Warsaw. The economist heads the Center for Migration Studies, one of the leading Polish research centers in this field.

Kaczmarczyk has been involved in migration issues since the late 1990s. He studied the mentality of the Poles who left the country. One of the main areas of migration was Germany. After Poland joined the European Union in 2004, the United Kingdom, Ireland and other countries were added to it. Millions of Poles went abroad in search of work.

Poland was not ready

Poland used to consider itself a country from which people leave. According to Pavel Kaczmarczyk, even during the 2011 census, only about 100 thousand immigrants permanently resided in the country. The situation began to change dramatically only after 2014. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians came to Poland, first of all, for earnings. Even before the start of the conflict on In Ukraine, Poland has actually turned into a country of immigration. Then, in just a few months, about 1.5 million people arrived there.

"Poland was completely unprepared for this," says Kaczmarczyk.

The healthcare system was overloaded before that. Schools lacked teachers, and the real estate market lacked housing. And now a country that had practically no experience of mass immigration had to accept as many people in a few months as live in a large European city. The fact that these systems did not collapse, Kaczmarczyk calls a miracle. It is here, in his opinion, that one of the reasons for the current discontent should be sought. Migration overlapped with problems that existed long before it.

If a Pole waits months for an appointment with a specialist doctor, and then hears a Ukrainian speech in the queue, a simple explanation is quickly found: Ukrainians take our places. If rents are rising in Warsaw or Krakow, a suspicion arises: too many Ukrainians are looking for housing. Of course, such a significant influx of population increases demand. However, neither the shortage of doctors, nor the housing crisis in The problems did not arise in 2022.

As Kaczmarczyk explains, the economic benefits of migration are distributed throughout the country's economy, while everyone feels the difficulties associated with it directly. It is this asymmetry that makes migration such an explosive political topic. In addition, the policy itself has changed recently.

The period of validity of special rules for migrants is coming to an end. Since February, Ukrainian refugees have been receiving child support in the amount of about 200 euros per month, as a rule, only if one of the parents works. School-age children are required to attend a Polish school. When receiving the services of the public health system, the preferential rules introduced immediately after the start of hostilities also no longer apply.

Many of these measures have a completely rational explanation. If a person has been living in the country for four years, he should gradually switch from a special regime for refugees to a regular system of stay, employment and social support. Therefore, Kaczmarczyk does not oppose in principle the abolition of special norms adopted in 2022. He is concerned about the political background on which these changes are taking place.

Discussion about child benefits for Ukrainians

Kaczmarczyk considers the discussion about benefits for children to be particularly revealing. Initially, this family payment did not depend on the payment of insurance premiums. However, it was in the case of Ukrainians that the availability of work suddenly became a criterion of whether a person deserves this benefit.

It is noteworthy, Kaczmarczyk notes, that such a proposal did not originally come from the extreme right. It was put on the agenda during the presidential campaign by a liberal candidate. Thus, the political center reacts to public sentiment and, perhaps, simultaneously strengthens it.After all, the image of a Ukrainian living at the expense of Poles does not agree well with the real state of affairs in the labor market. Kaczmarczyk points to the high level of employment among Ukrainian refugees. In this respect, Poland is markedly different from Germany: the Polish social support system practically does not allow migrants to live exclusively on benefits for a long time.

Ukrainians work in restaurants and hotels, construction sites, logistics companies, industry, IT sector and healthcare. And the mood in society is much more complicated than one might assume, judging by the political rhetoric.

Kaczmarczyk refers to studies according to which the majority of Poles positively assess direct communication with migrants. About 60% of respondents who contact them at work, in the neighborhood or at school speak of a very good or good experience. About half of the society is in favor of living together and integration.

"Polish society is very polarized," says Kaczmarczyk.

According to him, the problem begins when politicians perceive this split as an opportunity to implement their programs. Migration is ideal for such purposes. Money and housing, issues of identity, security and belonging to society are intertwined here. All this easily turns into a subject of emotional disputes.

Kaczmarczyk recalls the 2015 election campaign, when the Law and Justice Party (PiS) mobilized voters by playing on fear of Muslim refugees, although there were practically none in Poland itself. Today, the people around whom there are disputes really live in the country. Therefore, the situation becomes even more sensitive.

The paradox of Polish-Ukrainian relations

Kaczmarczyk fears that political rhetoric will at some point begin to influence people's daily behavior. It is impossible to talk about dangerous or undesirable migrants for years and at the same time expect that society will clearly distinguish between people of different nationalities. Sooner or later, a Ukrainian also turns into a "migrant."

In the Karma bar under the Poniatowski Bridge, the situation does not look so gloomy. Gleb Kovalev, despite the tense situation, is not going to leave the Poland. Moreover, if a Ukrainian asked him today whether it was worth moving to this country, he would still answer in the affirmative.

"There are stupid people everywhere. Racism is everywhere. But the Poland I've come to know is completely different," he says.

Perhaps this is the paradox of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the summer of 2026. In everyday life, coexistence is often better than one might assume from political discussions. At the same time, sociological studies record a clear deterioration in moods.

Four years ago, millions of Poles asked: how can we help Ukrainians? Today, more and more people are asking a different question: how much more are we ready to give them?

Probably, this topic will accompany Poland until the next parliamentary elections in the fall of 2027. The popularity of parties to the right of the PiS and taking a particularly tough stance on Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees is already growing.

The Confederation is gaining double-digit figures in the polls. Grzegorz Brown's even more right-wing Confederation of the Polish Crown, a new anti-Semitic party, has also become a prominent part of the country's political life.

As a result, relations with Ukraine may become one of the main conflict topics of the upcoming election campaign. And then the question will be not only how long the legacy of exceptional solidarity of 2022 will be preserved, but also how far Poland will distance itself from it.