Attacks on Ukrainians in Poland are rising. Disinformation fuels the flames

As Ukrainian-Polish relations took a nose-dive, war refugees and other Ukrainian migrants in Poland are feeling the impact.

Nationality-based attacks against Ukrainians, ranging from verbal abuse to physical assault, have been on the rise.

Experts say that disinformation — including Moscow's direct efforts to inflame relations between the two neighbors further — certainly plays a role.

But that is only part of the story. Ukrainian refugees have become caught in the crossfire of diplomatic disputes between Kyiv and Warsaw, historical grievances, and domestic Polish politics.

A surge in hate crimes

On July 26, in Wroclaw, three men physically assaulted a Ukrainian couple, in an attack the police identified as nationality-based.

A few weeks earlier, in Bielsko-Biala, a 54-year-old man hurled insults at a group of Ukrainians, including two 11-year-old girls, one of whom recorded the incident on her phone.

In Poznan, on July 3, two men associated with the Polish far-right — including an ex-soldier suspected of espionage for Russia — confronted a Ukrainian woman who runs an office providing legal assistance to Ukrainians, demanding entry and questioning her whether she "supports Stepan Bandera."

Numbers show that these are not isolated cases.

The Polish police received 180 reports of hate crimes against Ukrainians in the first half of 2026, an increase of over 30% compared to the same period last year, the Rzeczpospolita newspaper reports.

This dire statistic emerged as Polish-Ukrainian relations hit rock bottom after Ukraine named one of its military units after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

The UPA is viewed in Ukraine as a resistance movement against Soviet rule, but in Poland it is chiefly remembered for its role in the Volyn massacres, the mass killing of Poles in what is today western Ukraine.

The move sparked widespread outrage among the Polish public and led Polish President Karol Nawrocki to strip his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, of the highest state honor.

More than half of Poles said their view of Ukraine and the Ukrainians has worsened due to the UPA name dispute, according to a June poll.

Another survey showed that, for the first time since the measurement began in 2014, the majority of Poles oppose taking in Ukrainian refugees.

Poland currently hosts more than 900,000 people who fled Russia's full-scale invasion, the second-largest Ukrainian refugee population in the EU, and the country's largest ethnic minority.

And this minority is now an increasingly popular target of hate speech and disinformation online.

The Kremlin plays a role

Since last year, Polish fact-checkers have noted a significant increase in disinformation aimed against Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees.

"The main topics are crimes allegedly committed by Ukrainians," Pawel Cymbor from the FakeNews.pl fact-checking group told the Kyiv Independent.

"Very often, any report of a violent crime is circulated on social media as if the perpetrator were Ukrainian, regardless of whether this is true or not," Cymbor said.

"This gives rise to a great deal of fake news in which blame is wrongly attributed to Ukrainian citizens."

One claim, spread in recent months, falsely accused a "Ukrainian couple" of setting fire to a housing complex in the Warsaw suburb of Zabki last July, even though investigators ruled out arson as the cause.

Even the attacks against Ukrainians in Poland are twisted to lay the blame on the victims.

Some social media accounts alleged that the Ukrainians accosted by the 54-year-old Pole in Bielsko-Biala provoked the incident, even though video footage proves otherwise.

Another claim that spread across social media platforms alleged that a Ukrainian refugee woman murdered a Polish man who sheltered her for three years. According to the Demagog.pl fact-checking group, the story was completely fabricated.

Russia would certainly benefit from further driving a wedge between Ukraine and its allies, and at least some of these activities bear a Russian trace.

Many stories, including the one above, were traced by fact-checkers to Vietnam-based online content farms that monetize fake news through ads.

Social media analyst and disinformation expert Anna Mierzynska suggests that these farms may be employed in Moscow's disinformation operations, given their recent pivot toward fake anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian content.

Russian handiwork was also found in several videos, recently spread on Russian Telegram channels, of alleged "Ukrainian patriots" trampling on Polish flags.

Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation called the stunt a "provocation by Russian intelligence services."

The Disinformation Analysis Center at the Polish state's Research and Academic Computer Network (NASK), in turn, recorded an effort by local pro-Kremlin propaganda outlets to amplify genuine events involving Ukrainian nationals.

Kremlin propaganda takes such incidents, repeats them over and over, and presents them as evidence of a broader problem in an effort to turn public opinion against Ukraine, NASK disinformation analyst Paulina Wielogorska told the Kyiv Independent.

Paradoxically, these incidents usually involve Ukrainians suspected to be recruited by Russia to instigate provocations.

It is "pretty obvious that the Russians are somehow either inspired, or they engage their own resources to conduct such (disinformation) operations," Andrzej Kozlowski, a cybersecurity and disinformation researcher at the University of Lodz, told the Kyiv Independent.

But finding a dividing line between disinformation spread by domestic and foreign actors, as well as gauging the actual scale of Russia's involvement, is nearly impossible, he adds.

Polish disinformation accounts may simply take over content from Russian Telegram channels for their own agenda, or Moscow's propaganda apparatus may employ "Polish puppets," according to the expert.

"The anti-Ukrainian trend is used by Russian disinformation, by the domestic actors, by the politicians," simply because it has "become popular now."

The public mood shifts

While Russian disinformation is fueling the flames, it cannot be seen as the sole factor.

The initial wave of pro-Ukrainian solidarity in 2022 cooled and gave way to resentment and disputes over trade and historical grievances.

Ukraine-skeptic sentiments are increasingly becoming a useful tool in Polish politics.

They were used by the pro-Nawrocki camp to mobilize voters in the 2025 presidential election, and experts expect the same strategy from the right and far right in next year's parliamentary elections.

A June 2026 report, "We Are Not at Home: Ukrainian Migrants and Refugees on Relations with Poles," published by Polish NGO Instytut Krytyki Politycznej, confirmed that Ukrainians living in Poland experience a rise in discrimination and verbal abuse based on their nationality.

In this report, some of the 25 interviewees identified the 2025 election as a turning point.

Olena Babakova, a Polish-Ukrainian journalist covering migration and one of the report's authors, says that the real issue is not the growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment, but rather the public acceptance of its manifestations.

"And this example — 'you may be harsh, you may be brutal, that's fine' — is set by politicians and right-wing social media influencers," she told the Kyiv Independent.

Editor's note: This article was published as part of the Fighting Against Conspiracy and Trolls (FACT) project, an independent, non-partisan hub launched in mid-2025 under the umbrella of the EU Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). Click here to follow the latest stories from our hub on disinformation.

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Martin Fornusek, one of the authors of the article.

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