Analysis
Ukrainians welcome no more in Poland
Warsaw has reinstated border controls with Germany a few days ago. This new situation is giving unexpected visibility to the subversive right wing, which is fueling the myth of a “migrant invasion.”
In recent years, Poland has shown two different sides of itself when it comes to welcoming refugees along its eastern borders. On the one hand, it is a nation that has been ready to welcome more than a million Ukrainian refugees since the start of the Russian invasion with open arms; on the other, it is a country that has systematically rejected non-European refugees transiting from Belarus, admittedly being used against their will as a tool of disruption by Putin and Lukashenko.
This is a sign of asymmetric and selective solidarity in the country on the Vistula, well summed up by the striking “Refugees Welcome” banner displayed a year ago by the soccer fans in the north stand of Legia Warsaw’s stadium before a national league match against Zagłebie Lubin. The banner, adorned with folkloric floral motifs, showed three figures: a woman and two men, all with fair complexions that seemed to suggest Slavic origins. Their appearance pointedly looked nothing like the African or Middle Eastern immigrants who are victims of pushbacks at the Belarusian border.
Here, the welcoming message does not apply to everyone. And everything suggests that by the end of July, the current government led by former European Council President Donald Tusk of the Civic Platform party will decide to extend the suspension of asylum rights, in force since March, for another 60 days – the second such extension.
Furthermore, Warsaw has reinstated border controls with Germany a few days ago. This new situation is giving unexpected visibility to the subversive right wing, which is fueling the myth of a “migrant invasion,” a phenomenon that has never been confirmed by any figures. In recent days, for instance, militants from the Border Defense Movement (ROG) have been obstructing the work of the Polish Border Guard, arbitrarily assuming the right to control border traffic and verify the origin of people sent back to Poland from Germany.
Meanwhile, at the eastern border, there is further bad news for migrants. On July 4, 2025, the Asymetrysci Foundation announced on social media that the Polish Border Guard in Terespol had denied entry to a Ukrainian refugee fleeing Russian occupation via Belarus because he did not have a valid travel document and could only identify himself with his identity card. The Terespol-Brest crossing had already been under the spotlight during the last governments of the populist right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) due to Chechen families camping for months at the railway station in Brest, Belarus, waiting in vain to apply for asylum in Poland.
It is estimated that every day there are several cases of people from Ukraine being denied entry into Poland: "Our Border Guard has chosen to deliberately ignore the EU directive on the temporary protection of Ukrainians. It does not require them to present a biometric passport at the border. A birth certificate is sufficient to apply," explains Asymetrysci president Justyna Grabowska.
Those in this situation are mainly Ukrainian citizens fleeing Russian-occupied territories. This trend could intensify further if the Russian army makes more advances.
The path from selective solidarity to general indifference could end up being very short indeed. “Ukrainophobia” seems to be gaining momentum in Poland. There have been plenty of signs of this since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Since then, anti-Ukrainian chants and slogans have become a regular feature of the Marsz Niepodległosci (“Independence March”) organized every year by the far right on November 11 to celebrate the national day of independence.
The term “ukrainizacja,” coined a century ago to describe the policy of “Ukrainization” implemented in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1923 and 1929, has come back into vogue in Warsaw and its surroundings to describe, with a negative connotation, the alleged attempts by Ukrainians to impose their own culture on Poland. Recently, for example, Slask Wrocław soccer fans in Wrocław have risen to notoriety on several occasions for displaying anti-Ukrainian banners in the stands. This is a clear development away from the asymmetrical solidarity hinted at by Legia Warsaw fans.
“In June 2023, we reported incidents of hatred directed at Iga Swiatek. Far-right groups attacked the tennis player simply because, as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine, she wore a ribbon with the Ukrainian colors on her cap during Roland Garros,” says Łukasz Jakubowski from the anti-racist NGO Nigdy wiecej (“Never Again”). And it needs to be stressed that politicians are also partly responsible for the situation: “Over the past two years, we have seen a deterioration in attitudes towards Ukrainians, mainly due to the use of xenophobic topics for political propaganda purposes. These themes were widely exploited during the Polish presidential election campaign. Most of the candidates, including those from the pro-democracy camp, put out negative and distorted content concerning Ukrainians in Poland," adds Jakubowski.
Outgoing President Andrzej Duda (PiS) had made moral and military support for Ukraine one of his key issues. But things look set to change after the inauguration of the new president, Karol Nawrocki, scheduled for August 6. Although supported by PiS, Nawrocki has always been opposed to Kyiv's entry into NATO, and during the election campaign he said that Ukrainians “should not be allowed to live better in Poland than Poles.”
For his part, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, who was narrowly defeated by Nawrocki in the June 1 runoff, had himself proposed revoking the 800 Plus benefit (a monthly subsidy of about €190 per child offered to all families) for Ukrainian citizens who do not work in Poland. Tusk's government then introduced a rule that excludes children who do not attend school in Poland from receiving the subsidy.
Beyond the border rejections, anti-Ukrainian sentiment could soon push many Ukrainians toward other shores. There are 700,000 Ukrainian workers in Poland. A mass exodus of the Ukrainian workforce could have a strongly negative impact on the Polish economy. The full stakes involved in the Ukrainians' stay in Poland are much greater than one might imagine.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/gli-ucraini-non-piu-benvenuti on 2025-07-26