{
  "id": 6085932,
  "title": "Poland’s anti-Ukrainian turn spills into violence",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/07/polands-anti-ukrainian-turn-spills-into-violence",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-07T02:01:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Politico EU",
    "slug": "politico-eu",
    "url": "https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-anti-ukraine-violence/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Warsaw, Poland — As the nation prepares for a critical parliamentary election in 2027, the hostility towards the roughly 1.5 million Ukrainians residing in Poland has intensified, presenting a significant political issue. Nationalist right-wing politicians have portrayed Ukrainians as a drain on the country's public finances and have capitalized on local resentment stemming from wartime history and social benefits. This summer, in a controversial move, President Karol Nawrocki revoked the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in response to the latter's decision to name a military unit after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The UPA, despite fighting against the Soviet Union, had a notorious history of murdering tens of thousands of Poles during their ethnic-cleansing campaign between 1943 and 1945.\n\nAs tensions continue to simmer, nationalist and far-right parties, including Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-Ukraine coalition and the Law and Justice party, are exploiting the situation for political gain. Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar expressed concern that politicians are exploiting the Ukrainian issue for their own political purposes, with some focusing on developments in Ukraine and others on the behavior of Ukrainians living in Poland. This divisive narrative has turned a majority of Poles who support Ukraine into a target, with verbal hostility now spilling over into violence.\n\nAccording to recent opinion polls, sympathy among Poles towards Ukrainians has plummeted from 51% in 2023 to 29% in January 2026, while antipathy has risen from 38% to 43% over the past year. A significant proportion of those polled, 45.4%, attributed the deterioration to disputes over the historical policy and wartime massacres perpetrated by the UPA, with social benefits for Ukrainians in second place at 36.4%. The increase in hate crimes against Ukrainians has been alarming, with Polish authorities recording a 30% surge in ethnically motivated crimes against Ukrainians in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025.",
  "summary": "The number of crimes against Ukrainians in Poland is rising as right-wing Polish politicians ramp-up anti-Ukraine rhetoric.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}