Dealers of Hate: Kyiv Independent documentary investigates aggression against Ukrainians in Europe
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The Kyiv Independent has released "Dealer of Hate," a new documentary by investigative reporter Danylo Mokryk that examines aggression against Ukrainians in the EU countries that took in the largest number of refugees following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The documentary premiered on Oct. 30 online on the Kyiv Independent YouTube channel and at an in-person screening in Kyiv, followed by a discussion with the team behind the film.
The film traces how hate speech on social media and from the political stage feeds hostility toward Ukrainians — and how that hostility turns into real-world aggression on the streets of German, Czech and Polish cities.
It shows that anti-Ukrainian sentiment has been actively fueled by local politicians, including Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla in Germany, Tomio Okamura and Andrej Babis in the Czech Republic, and Grzegorz Braun and Karol Nawrocki in Poland. Surges have been especially intense during election campaigns.
At the center of the film are Ukrainian women who have faced everyday aggression, physical assault, and a sense of being left unprotected by the police. Their experiences are only a few among many, as hundreds of Ukrainians in the three countries have become victims of anti-Ukrainian sentiment.
“I first started floating the idea to investigate anti-Ukrainian movements in the EU countries back in 2023, when our War Crimes Investigations Unit had just been created,” Mokryk said. “Since then, those movements have grown stronger, European politicians exploiting anti-Ukrainian narratives have grown more popular — and, most importantly, the attacks on Ukrainian refugees in the EU countries have considerably grown in numbers.
“Instrumentalizing hate is dangerous. And we wanted to show a strong connection between words of hate and real physical attacks. Of course, freedom of speech is important. But it comes with responsibility. And this is what our new documentary is really about: responsibility.”
The documentary draws on the Kyiv Independent's own analysis of tens of thousands of posts about Ukrainians on X in Czech, Polish and German, carried out together with data analyst Denys Hubashov. Using an AI model, the team identified the most widespread anti-Ukrainian narratives in each country and examined how they resonate with local populations.
"Dealers of Hate" is also available in Ukrainian on the YouTube channel of the Kyiv Independent's media partner Ukrainska Pravda.
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