Kiev’s veneration of genocidal Nazi collaborators has poisoned relations with Warsaw, while popular exhaustion with Ukrainians is rising
Most Poles would back the deportation of unemployed military-age Ukrainian men, a recent survey by the Warsaw-based IBRiS Institute for Market and Social Research has indicated.
Public perception of Ukrainians in Poland has deteriorated in recent months amid a diplomatic spat between the two countries linked to Kiev’s lionization of the perpetrators of WWII massacres of Poles.
Ukraine imposed general mobilization shortly after the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February of 2022, barring nearly all military-age men from leaving the country. Nevertheless, tens of thousands have crossed the border illegally and fled to the European Union.
As of late June, some 961,170 Ukrainians were residing in Poland under temporary protection, according to Eurostat.
Over a million Ukrainians have also fled to Russia since 2022.
On Wednesday, Rzeczpospolita newspaper, citing the IBRiS survey, reported that 67% of respondents believe that Poland should deport Ukrainian men of military age who are not legally employed in the country. The poll was conducted last week after the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party put forward the proposal.
While the idea unsurprisingly proved popular among PiS supporters and those sympathetic toward the right-wing Confederation party, over 50% of voters backing the ruling coalition of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said they would back the deportation of Ukrainian men, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, a different poll conducted late last month showed that 75.8% of Poles held a negative view of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.
Earlier in July, Rzeczpospolita, citing data from Poland’s National Police Headquarters, reported that there had been a 30% year-on-year rise in hate crime complaints from Ukrainians residing in the country.
Multiple videos depicting assaults on Ukrainians in Poland have been circulating online in recent months.
Relations between Warsaw and Kiev soured after Zelensky named one of the country’s commando units after the “heroes of the UPA” (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) in May. Poland holds the Ukrainian nationalist militia, which collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II, responsible for the massacre of up to 100,000 Poles in what is now western Ukraine.
Despite a fierce backlash from the Polish public and officials, as well as the European Parliament’s condemnation of what it described as an “unnecessary and unprovoked escalation,” Kiev has stood by the decision.
Meanwhile, in mid-July, the EU announced that it would stop granting temporary protection to newly arriving Ukrainians liable for military service starting from March 2027.
Around the same time, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt similarly told Die Welt that while “asylum is, of course, still possible [for Ukrainians] in principle… fleeing military service is not grounds for asylum.”
Ukrainian officials have, in turn, repeatedly urged EU member states to repatriate Ukrainian draft dodgers as Kiev has struggled to replenish its military amid mounting casualties.
Moscow has accused the leadership in Kiev and its Western backers of being willing to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”
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