War refugees complain about abuse in Poland

Svitina says her daughter loved her school in Poland.

“Even when we moved to another area, she did not want to change schools,” says the 31-year-old Ukrainian mother. “She liked it so much. There was no harassment.”

Now she says that the atmosphere in the school – and in Poland as a whole – has changed.

“Two weeks ago, she came home and said,” A boy told me today, “Go back to Ukraine.” Svitlana was surprised.

She is one of the dozens of Ukrainians living in Poland who have told the BBC that anti-Ukrainian sentiment has increased significantly in recent months.

Many have described that they are experiencing public transport, harassment in schools and xenophobic materials online.

The polarizing campaign for the presidential election added to the tension, with the first round of vote held on Sunday.

On the day after Svikana’s daughter was told to return to Ukraine, the abuse became even worse.

“Girls in the class, they began to complain about speaking Ukrainian. Then they pretended to fall to the ground and shout” a rocket! Go down! “And she was laughing,” Svitlana says. “She got home and wept.”

A Russian rocket crashed into Svitna’s hometown in Ukraine days ago, killing dozens of civilians, including children. Her daughter was injured.

Svitna – not her real name did not want to be identified as she Fears repression. She showed us screenshots of messages with school staff, where she complains about the treatment of her daughter.

She said she noticed attitudes that change to Ukrainians and elsewhere: “At work, many people say that Ukrainians come here and behave badly. And my Ukrainian friends say they want to go home because Polish people do not accept us.

According to government statistics, at least 2.5 million Ukrainians live in Poland, including almost 7% of the total population of Poland.

When the full -scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, there was a pouring of compassion from poles. “It was amazing. Every day, people called and asked,” How can we help? “Says activist Natalia Panchenko, head of the Stay with Ukraine Foundation, based in Warsaw.

“Some of them organized humanitarian convoys or brought refugees here. They gave their houses, food, everything they have – and their hearts too.”

Three years later, Natalia says she believes that the bigger part of the Poles still support Ukraine. But some of her organization has noticed a rise in anti-Ukrainian online abuse, which began a few months ago.

“Then it started to come to real life,” she says. “Recently, we have more and more of these types of situations … xenophobic (abuse) of people working in shops or hotels just because they talk to Ukrainian accent.”

Natalia says many Ukrainian refugees are injured. “These groups of women and children are in Poland because of the war. Very often their relatives are on the front line, in captivity or dead … and this is a group of people who are directed.”

Studies show that Poland’s public opinion on Ukrainians is really getting worse. According to a poll of March 2025 from the respected CBOS center, only 50% of the Poles are for the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees, a decline of seven percentage points in four months. Two years ago, the figure was 81%.

About a million Ukrainians have been officially registered as arriving after the start of the full -scale invasion. Poland spends 4.2% of its GDP on Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine has become a political issue for hot buttons in the decisive Polyan Campaign for Presidential Election in Poland.

The end-the-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, who is currently in third place, is a virulent anti-Ukrainian and supports a “agreement” with Russian Vladimir Putin.

Second is conservative Carol Naroki, who opposes EU and NATO membership of Ukraine and financial assistance for refugees, but supports war efforts.

The most scandal for the pro-Ukraine is the front racer Rafal Trzaskovski of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, although he even promised a reduction in social care for Ukrainians.

Trzaskowski refrained from supporting its pro-Ukrainian powers to attract the centrist vote of elections, says political analyst Marcin Borovski.

“He corresponds to the change in public attitudes. The initial enthusiasm for supporting the victims of the war disappears, the negative sentiment takes over, and this is not a completely convenient question for him.”

Another far -right candidate, Grzegorz Braun, is under investigation by police to destroy a Ukrainian flag from the City Hall building during April’s election rally. Brown, who only interviews 3%, regularly performs what he calls Poland’s Ukrainianization.

Last week, the Polish government warned of Russia’s “unprecedented experience” to intervene in the Polish elections by distributing “fake information to Polish online citizens”. Moscow denies all the allegations of election intervention.

Michal Marek, who runs a non -governmental organization that monitors misinformation and propaganda in Poland, offers some examples of anti -encrypted material that is distributed on social media.

“The main stories are that Ukrainians are stealing money from the Polish budget, that the Ukrainians do not respect us, that they want to rob us and kill us and are responsible for the war,” he says.

“This information begins in Russian -language telegram channels and then we see the same photos and the same text translated by Google Translate. And they press (material) in the Polish infosphere.”

Mr. Marek connects such misinformation directly to the increase in anti-install moods in Poland and says that an increasing number of poles are influenced by propaganda.

“But we will only see the effect after the election – what percentage of Poles they want to vote for openly pro -Russian candidates.”