Has Poland fallen out of love with Ukraine?

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0:30up at Whole Foods Market. Why does the world want American surrogates? I'm Asma Khalid, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Paying someone to carry a pregnancy is banned in most of Europe and large parts of Asia as well. But here in the US, business is booming, though as the popularity has grown, so too has the public debate around the ethics of it all. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening to this Crossing Continents podcast. Now, Poland really is on the NATO front line when it comes to the war in Ukraine. It's vital as a conduit for weapons to the Ukrainians, and it's also helped millions of Ukrainian refugees.

1:18Russian drones and missiles have crashed onto Polish soil. I'm John Murphy, and when I started hearing of anti-Ukrainian feeling in Poland. I thought I should take a look. Oh, gosh, Maria's rushed ahead. Where are you? Oh, there she is. Springing her step. I'm following this energetic 66-year-old Maria Krul as she takes us on a quick tour of the building, part of a health charity she set up 36 years ago in the town of Zamosz in southeast Poland. Ah, this looks like a gym. This is the first rehabilitation and therapeutic centre for children. 1992 started and after we organised a lot of facilities for adults for example, So now we have 12.

2:1512 different centres. In Zamość and around Zamość. And help 300, 400 families. We have schools. We have health centres. We have social care centres, residential places, workshops. So when you say 300, 400 families, you're talking about Polish families mainly. Polish, yes. But you also have a few Ukrainian families still with you. Now, phew. And on the wall there, there's the big sign. This is Croquiam. Step by step, Pa à Pa in France. That's the name of your association. The name is good for different languages. Yes. It's English, you know. OK, that's from England. But what I can see is various wheelchairs.

3:04There's this equipment to lift up patients because one of the things they do deal with here is cerebral palsy. 20 rooms for class, for children, very severe disability. You have a son who's also disabled. My son has cerebral palsy and now he's 41 years old. Wow. On the power chair, but clever. So are you, I'm sure. And the thing is, Maria, your organisation has been helping a lot of Ukrainians, particularly since 2022. since the full-scale invasion. Yes, a lot. If there's ever a good example of a Polish person who's gone out of her way to help Ukrainian refugees, Maria Izet. For years, she'd been providing training and workshops to Ukrainian teachers and therapists.

4:00Then Russia launched its invasion. She's looking through her covers, which are full of files. She's brought out a kind of laminated poster which is in? It is in Polish and in Ukrainian language. And what does it say? We give information for Ukrainian refugees with disabled people, with disabled children to come to us for help. So you put these up in Ukraine? Yes, that is my phone and my colleague's phone so we stop sleep by two months. So you didn't sleep for two months? at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. A lot of adrenaline. It was adrenaline. And a very important word. So as a result of that, lots of Ukrainians came here.

4:53300 families. 300 families. 500 families. So that's a lot of people. A lot of people. Because each family would have had several members. Yes, and with dogs and cats. And stay in our places. We gave them two small rooms for three, four days, and we looked for support, for help in different places, in Poland, in Germany, in Sweden, in different places. You've talked about adrenaline, you've talked about the important work, but were you happy to be doing it? Yeah, because I am a woman who likes to help people. Because I am a doctor, I want to help. children and different people. And because we Polish people, we understand very good the terrible time of war.

5:49Because in Poland, we have very bad periods. Yes, you've got a tough history. Yes. And our enemy is Russia. Every time is Russia. So we identify with them, with Ukrainian people, because our common enemy. Maria raised hundreds of thousands of euros from donors around the world to pay for the help she was giving all those Ukrainian families. Three families are still living here, while other Ukrainian children come in for regular treatment. And yet, four years on, listen to this from her. We had a lot of problems with Ukrainian people because they stayed, not three days, but three years, four years, you know.

6:37So this period, a lot of problems like in my being Polish people, you know, with alcohol, with not good order and different things. So we are tired, a little tired after this support because it isn't our duty, you know. A lot of people in Ukraine ask me as a doctor, help me with operation, with surgery, with different places. Not helped me because of war, but helped me because our health service was worse than in Poland. We wanted to help refugees, not to open our health service for all Ukrainian people who wanted to... Get some treatment. Yes. So you're saying some Ukrainians maybe took advantage?

7:29Yes, of course. So you've gone from quite positive at the beginning to quite negative now. Is that a fair representation? A little, like it is, yes. Maria also told me many of the Ukrainians her charity helped didn't express much gratitude. She's far from the only one to change her views. Opinion polls show that when Russia's full-scale invasion began, more than 90 % of Polish people held positive feelings about Ukrainians. Millions of refugees poured across the border and Polish families took them in. The Polish government gave them financial support and fast-tracked work permits and residency.

8:13Meanwhile, weapons went the other way, to help Ukraine defend itself. But today, surveys show that more than half of Polish people have negative feelings and many want the million or so refugees to go back. Attacks, both verbal and physical, on Ukrainians in Poland have risen significantly, though admittedly from a low base.

8:42We've travelled to another of Krakza Krokiem's properties, where those three Ukrainian families Maria mentioned are still living. And here on the pictures you can see some photographs of some of the people who've been here, maybe all of them in wheelchairs, young people. With me is Djegorj Sokou, who's helping me with this story and translating. Hello. Hello. Valentina. Valentina. We meet Valentina and her 15-year-old daughter. Hello. It's really hot. The fan is on. So we've come into Valentina's room. And her daughter, a totally disabled daughter, is on a screen there. She's watching some kind of film.

9:32Yeah, yeah. Valentina, how long have you been here with your daughter? Three years already have passed. And where from? From Ukraine in Ternopil region. It's quite close to the Polish port. It's Western Ukraine. Valentina says Yulia's dad is also disabled and has a part-time job as a truck driver back in Ukraine while her other daughter has been finishing a master's degree there but for now it's not safe to take Yulia back. We came to the center and she liked it very much there's a place where you could have everything in one place you know medical rehabilitation in the school and we were able to stay, which is so good.

10:18She loves it. She's not afraid. She has everything in one place. She likes it very much. For instance, she has this tablet that she uses for communication, a communicator, because she doesn't speak at all. But using the communicator, she can express everything. So Julia here is on her...

10:37My name's Julia. I am 15.

10:44I go to the eighth class. On this pad there are all sorts of symbols that she can flick through. You can talk to her about anything, almost anything you want. It's great, we're here in Poland that we got this communicator.

11:04It's great for me because she's learned Polish. When we came here we couldn't speak any Polish, she didn't understand any Polish at all. And now she's learned so she can speak Polish in Ukrainian using this. we didn't have access to such program. So 15-year-old Julia here, who cannot communicate verbally, is using this tablet in front of her. So, Julia, do you like living here in Poland? Tak, tak, yes. She's pressed a green triangle and it says tak, yes. Tak, tak, yes. Yes. So do you think, Julia, you'd like to stay in Poland or would you like to go back to Ukraine?

11:45Valentina is responding for her daughter, saying, you know, she wants to stay here in Poland and stay at school, but she also wants to go back to Ukraine, where her father is and her sister is, and she wants her school and home to be in one place. She wants all of that. But right now it's not possible. Talking about the help you've received here, are you grateful? Are you grateful, Tata? I always thank you very much. Of course, very much. I always thank. Because they've done so much for my child and for me. But you'd rather be together as a family if you could be? Yeah. This is how our daughter is and this is how we have to do with it.

12:28You know, what's good for her is good for all of us. Thank you both. Thank you, Yulia. Thank you, Velita. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, in Polish. Maria Krul wouldn't dream of throwing people like Valentina and Julia out, but she has a problem. Now we have a difficult situation without money for accommodation. Electric, water and different, it is my problem. Partly because Polish government funds have been cut. Yes, and it is incredible that for people like this, cut the money for disabled people. the most vulnerable people. In August last year, Poland's new president, Karol Nawrowski, who was supported by the right-wing Law and Justice Party, vetoed legislation which would have prolonged benefits Ukrainian refugees were getting, including, for example, child benefit.

13:25Ukrainians must now have jobs to qualify. For a mother or grandmother looking after young children, that can be very difficult. It was a bank here. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, yeah, you can see all the big solid metal doors and stuff. And there is a safe, yeah. OK. A bit over an hour's drive north-west of Zamosch, Milena Kloszkowska is showing us around this 100-year-old building in the city of Lublin. She's a board member of Homo Faber, a prominent Polish human rights NGO. We're in a community centre they call Baobab, like the tree, a place to gather safely. We have a lot of services here. We are helping people with taxes, with the legalisation.

14:19We have a lawyer, psychologist. We work in English, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish language, of course. So we are trying to help people because here in Lublin we have a lot of people from Ukraine, from Belarus and from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe? Yeah. Given that you, where you work and that you work to help some of these refugees, have you recognised more anti-Ukrainian feeling? Yes, of course. People are afraid. People are afraid to take children on the playground during the holiday. The Ukrainians are afraid. Yeah, they are afraid to speak in Ukrainian language on the street. Because? Because Polish people are so angry and we're still seeing new attacks on the social media, etc., etc.

15:06So they are afraid because a lot of people can scream to them something, you know, like back to Ukraine. Politicians started to say that, oh, they took a lot of money from us. They should always thank us, but they are not. They are speaking in the media that we have to stop the hell. You know, people in Poland, I think, really like to have an enemy. This is the highest moment with the aggression to Ukrainian people here in Poland. Who are you blaming for this sort of change of attitude from the love position four years ago to this really anti-Ukrainian feeling? I think it started with the Russian bots because they started a few, few years ago.

15:53Milena's referring to Russian bots, automised accounts used for online attacks. So they are started, but our politicians saw that, OK, that works. People like it in Poland. They love to prepare, you know, commentary, that back to your country, you are, you know, I don't want to use the words, but I think they catch the occasion and they use it. And do you expect all this anti-Ukrainian feeling to increase? Or do you think this is just a temporary problem? I hope that this is temporary, but I'm afraid that not, that it will be still higher and higher. Much of the political rhetoric in Poland during last year's presidential election campaign and ahead of next year's parliamentary election has been hostile towards Ukraine and Ukrainians here in Poland.

16:50They're often accused of sponging off the Polish state, of not being grateful enough that there are just too many of them. Though the evidence points to Ukrainians paying their taxes and boosting Poland's GDP, for instance in 2024, by 2.7%. I can show you the big kitchen. Upstairs in the kitchen area we meet Olga. Her young child is chewing on a sweet and some cucumber, and sitting at a table is her 18-year-old daughter with a plate of dumplings. Mother and three daughters, including a baby, came here four years ago. We have her first birthday here. Olga speaks Polish now and works as a psychologist with children with disabilities here in Lublin.

17:40Most Ukrainians in Poland have jobs. The employment rates are incredibly high, about 75 % for recent refugees, though many of those jobs are below their qualifications. As for pre-war Ukrainian migrants, more than 90 % are employed. Obviously you've been getting on well here, it seems. But as a Ukrainian, do you ever worry nowadays when you go outside, just in the street? My daughter has had an incident that happened to her. when she was on the bus and someone addressed her in an aggressive, vulgar way and was calling her names. Someone who was abusing alcohol, that kind of person, but telling her to get the F out and go back to Ukraine and such.

18:28Just to be clear, did you get the abuse because he heard you speaking Ukrainian? So I was speaking with a friend in Ukrainian and there was a man who started sort of cursing at me. She was 15 at the time. So I have a friend whose friend had this situation where she was walking and talking to someone in the Ukrainian and there was a guy passing by on a bicycle and he passed him and then he turned around, came back and he cut her on her arm with a knife, with a blade so that she actually has now problems with her fingers. He cut some of the veins. He was caught, but then he has some documents from the psychiatrist.

19:13So the police got him, but they couldn't do anything.

19:19I speak to my youngest daughter only in Polish in public spaces, on the bus, for instance. Only at home, speaking Ukrainian. And here in Baobaba, you can speak Ukrainian, and I know no one will turn against us for that. But I'm a little afraid, and I'm careful, so I stick to Polish in public.

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20:19But here in the US, business is booming. Though as the popularity has grown, so too has the public debate around the ethics of it all. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This region has a troubled history. Borders have shifted back and forth over the centuries. Lviv, for example, now in Ukraine, was, before the Second World War, the Polish city of Lviv. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it had been Lemberg. In World War II, it was captured by the Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets again, who pushed Poland's frontiers westwards. That dark history has reared its head again recently.

21:04Just by the side of the motorway west of Zamosch, there's a giant memorial. Yes, it's certainly a very dramatic monument. It's about, I don't know, 15 metres high. It's pretty tall. Shape of the Polish eagle with a cross in the middle. at the bottom there's this family group two children holding on to their parents and the mother is holding on to a baby and the father's just behind her holding up a crucifix and there are flames at the bottom the writing says Volinia massacre this is the same word that we use for the massacre of the innocent in the bible Rześniewiniątek So they're likening the two, yeah.

21:55And above that, in the middle of the cross, there's this trident. Which is the symbol of Ukraine, right? Yeah. And right in the middle of the cross, the top of the trident, is skewering through a baby. Anger in Poland over Volodynia has been turbocharged in recent months, certainly on the political right and on social media. after Ukraine's President Zelensky named a military unit Heroes of the UPA for their defence against the Russians. The extreme nationalist UPA fought for Ukrainian independence against the Soviets in World War II, as well as against the Nazis and Polish authorities. In Poland, though, they're accused of committing a genocide of 100 ,000 Polish civilians at Volodya and elsewhere.

22:45Poland's president, Nawrocki, responded by stripping president Zelenski of the highest Polish state honour, the Order of the White Eagle, which had been awarded to him by Nawrocki's predecessor. Yeah, and round the back of this monument, you can see children's heads on metal spikes or on wooden spikes. It's all pretty gruesome.

23:15several people turned up to look at the monument when we were there including this young woman she explains how seeing the memorial and reading the information board has left her with difficult feelings how shocked she is at the scale of the masker how she didn't even know about it what's it make you feel about the ukrainians So, yes, of course those who are here, I mean, I have no grudge or they're not guilty of it. Although when one looks at it, it makes one think, you know, is it a good nation, you know? It makes one worry about whether something like this could happen again. It makes one wonder, you know, who is it that we're helping?

23:57And also the person who is ruling Ukraine, is that a good person? because people are people, but the authorities and the rulers are something else. History and memory are complicated. What's often left out of the Polish narrative on Volinya is that Polish forces also killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians. However, that growing sense of doubt about Ukraine is something I also heard from Maria Krul. Her own mother and grandmother escaped from Volinya with the help of a Ukrainian family. But now, after Ukrainian president glorified Ukrainian bandits, it's terrible for me. You know, it's terrible.

24:42I didn't think that when I come to Ukraine to help disabled children, maybe this grandfather of this child was a bandit, Ukrainian bandit from... From the Second World War. Yes, but try to understand me. I'm afraid. So what are you afraid of? Aggression from Ukraine. You're afraid of aggression from Ukraine? Yes, for example, in the future. And are you more afraid of Ukraine losing or of aggression from Ukraine, losing this war, which would mean you'd have Russian troops much closer to you? I don't know. That's just one view, of course But similar questions about Ukraine have been pushed by nationalist politicians in Poland And especially on social media Cool And you get a seat in here On this little lift Please shut the door quietly We're taking a wood-panelled lift up to the top floor of one of the few pre-Second World War buildings still standing in the capital of Warsaw.

25:57It was spared as the Nazis raised most of the city in punishment for the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 because it housed SS officers. Hi. I'm John. We're here to meet Michal Fedorowicz of the European collective Res Futura. They analyse online data and what's happening on social media. So we can tell the story about the relations, online relations, Ukraine and Polish from 2022 when Russian attacked Ukraine till now, 2026. It is a story, when you look online, it's a story from love to hate. The question is why. Michal's clear a lot is down to the ever-present Russian propaganda on social media in Poland.

26:51which was Ukrainian people are taking your social securities, hospital, doctors, etc. So they switch from the country to the people. And it was quite easy because, as you know, Ukrainians were in Poland before the war. They are entrepreneurs, they have their own businesses. So it was quite easy to attack, look, your Ukrainian neighbour have a better car. He is living a better life. He is earning loads of money. It was every day spreading little lies, little fake news, little disinformation. It was really, you know, every day one degree more, half degree more. This happened across Europe, Michal says.

27:43The goal being to sow division and make Europeans question their support for Ukraine. The negative messages are boosted by social media algorithms and influencers who repeat them because they're looking for attention. Negative messages, more than positive ones, generally get more reach and garner more likes. We see every week more hate, more anger. So right now we are in the middle of an information war between Russian propaganda and European values, which main enemy is Ukrainian citizens living in Poland. Arguments about history, particularly Volinya, have been a gift to the Russian propaganda machine, Michal says, as have arguments about Ukrainian grain exports undercutting Polish farmers.

28:37Anything can be picked on, even when Russian drones or missiles have crashed onto Polish soil. In September 2025, when we had drone attacked from the 9th to 10th at night. Yes, you had some drones that came over the border. Yeah, there were 16 or 14 drones crossing the border, Russian drones. The drone entered in the night, 2, 3 o 'clock at night. When Polish nation wake up at 6 o 'clock, 7 o 'clock in the morning, all the social media was full of the story that they were not Russian drones, but Ukrainian drones, because Ukrainians, now they drag you to the war, because they send special drones.