A recent opinion poll by CBOS, Poland's largest polling institution, found that 52% of Poles now oppose their country accepting Ukrainian refugees. This marks a significant shift from the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion, when ordinary Poles rushed to help millions fleeing the conflict.
From Open Doors to Growing Weariness
When Russian tanks advanced toward the Ukrainian capital, Poles opened their doors to civilians running from bombs, and even the then-ruling populist Law and Justice party had to follow suit. Poland advocated for the Ukrainian cause in the west with some success, and Ukrainian leaders praised Poles for their generosity and the government in Warsaw for contributing weapons and money to the war effort.
Given that recent history between the two countries had been marked by accusations of second world war-era genocide, border shifts and postwar displacements of millions of people, this was a remarkable change. But it has not lasted, with a steadily growing number of Poles becoming weary of supporting Kyiv, and many rightwingers arguing that weapons transfers have depleted Poland's own capacity to defend against a potential Russian incursion.
Historical Disputes and Rising Violence
Memory politics has unhelpfully resurfaced after Volodymyr Zelenskyy named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a branch of which massacred about 100,000 Poles in 1943. The Polish right responded in kind, and President Karol Nawrocki revoked Zelenskyy's Order of the White Eagle, the highest state honour available to non-Poles. Both sides refused to back down, returning further honours and freezing mutual relations.
This is all great fodder for Russian propaganda that runs amok on Polish social media. Misinformation about Ukrainian "welfare queens" claiming benefits at the expense of hard-working local people is fuelling tensions that increasingly turn to violence. A particularly vicious incident took place on 26 July, when a young Ukrainian couple was attacked outside a grocery store in Wrocław, with the suspected attackers allegedly shouting "go away to war". Headlines trickle out almost daily about Ukrainian citizens being verbally abused or physically attacked in Polish streets.
A Failure to Understand Each Other
Beyond personal spats between leaders, historical disputes and Russian influence, another dimension of this deteriorating relationship keeps being overlooked. In dealing with the urgent fallout of the conflict, neither country had done enough to understand each other beyond the war. That failure is now coming back to haunt them.
Poland had failed to fully realise that Ukrainians were not just helpless victims of Vladimir Putin, but actual people with agency. As soon as they could, many Ukrainian refugees moved out of their hosts' living rooms and rented or bought apartments. They set up businesses, many of which are now flourishing, and created a robust community, often engaging in direct competition with local people. They refused to behave as grateful or passive recipients of Polish charity. This is an understandable, indeed desirable progression, but as a result, compassion ceased to be the currency of the relationship between Poles and Ukrainians. For Poland, a country nearly entirely ethnically homogenous since its postwar years, such a change became difficult, if not impossible, to handle.
Ukraine, of course, is a country like any other, with a large economy and national interests beyond its resistance to Putin's war of aggression. It has evolved from passive recipient of western aid in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion in 2022 to a global exporter of new military technology and knowhow. Accustomed to direct talks with US and western European leaders, Ukrainians do not need an "advocate", certainly not in Warsaw. Zelenskyy can run his own show.
A Cautionary Tale for Europe
What emerges, therefore, is contempt in place of cooperation, and hate in place of hope. The initial enthusiasm was bound eventually to disappear, and both governments should have prepared for that. Instead, they allowed a vacuum to be filled by Russian misinformation aimed at pulling the two countries further apart, thus weakening Europe's support for Ukraine. Such an outcome could and should have been avoided, especially by Donald Tusk's liberal governing coalition.
It failed to recognise Ukraine's growing ambitions and continued to feed the myth that Warsaw was destined to play a Promethean role in Kyiv's future. It did not prepare its own people for accepting refugees as fully fledged members of society. And it fostered the delusion that it was Poland that somehow had a decisive vote on whether Ukraine enters democratic Europe.
Poland's shortsightedness is a cautionary tale. Whatever happens in the next few years, it seems certain that Ukraine will be drawn closer to Europe, and Ukrainians closer to the European economies. They will become business competitors to the French and Germans, just as they have been to the Poles. Ukrainian leaders will come to Brussels, Paris and Berlin, asking not for free bullets and money, but for an equal voice, arguing that their defence of the continent against Russian barbarism has earned them a seat at the table.
None of this should come as a surprise: Ukrainians are more than victims, and Ukraine is more than a country at war. Poland's failure to take this into account has already had dramatic consequences. The rest of Europe still has time to prepare for that obvious reality.
