When the full-scale invasion began, 94% of Poles backed taking in Ukrainians. By July 2026, the Center for Public Opinion Research (CBOS) put that figure at 42%, and 52% of respondents said Poland should not accept refugees from the war zone at all. UNN, which reported the poll on July 17, called it the first time since polling began that opponents outnumbered supporters.
The CBOS numbers are the sharpest point on a curve that has been bending for years.
The refugee mood
A June 2024 survey by the University of Warsaw and the University of Economics and Humanities in Warsaw, published by Rzeczpospolita, found the same drift. Some 95% of Poles wanted social benefits for refugees reduced. Only 17% would accept Ukrainians settling long term, down from 37% a little over a year earlier, and 61% wanted them to go home once the fighting ended. Schooling was the exception: 82% supported educating Ukrainian children.
Attitudes toward the war effort slipped too. In that 2024 survey, 31% said Poland must definitely help Ukraine, against 62% in January 2023. Another 43% “rather agree.” The 2026 CBOS poll added that 54% think aid to refugees is excessive and 87% favor limiting medical care for uninsured Ukrainians. Support splits along party lines, with left-leaning and centrist voters friendlier and conservative and nationalist voters more opposed.
Grain, trucks and a massacre
Politics hardened alongside public opinion. In 2023 Warsaw banned Ukrainian agricultural imports after Polish farmers protested that Ukrainian grain was flooding their market. Polish truckers then blockaded the border for months over EU transit rules for Ukrainian carriers. The Kyiv Independent reported that the dispute was settled, though the political chill stayed behind.
The next quarrel was historical. Poland has pressed for years to exhume victims of the 1943 Volyn Massacre, in which members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army killed tens of thousands of Poles. Ukraine blocked exhumations in 2017 after UPA memorials in Poland were vandalized, and Kyiv says it will lift the ban once those memorials are restored.
On Sept. 13, 2024, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski took the demand to Zelensky in Kyiv and warned him not to expect quick EU membership. Zelensky, the Kyiv Independent’s sources said, answered that Warsaw was politicizing history, falling short on promised military aid and not fully backing his country’s EU path. Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz had already said in July that Ukraine could not join the EU without settling Volyn. President Andrzej Duda took the other side, arguing that any threat to block accession serves the Kremlin’s line.
Why now
Experts quoted by the paper tied the sharper tone to Poland’s May 2025 presidential election. Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak said “the narrative on Ukraine is changing in Poland.” Political scientist Stanislav Zhelikhovskyi expected relations to steady after the vote, but not to return to the “honeymoon” of 2022.
Sources
- Poland-Ukraine Relations Deteriorate as Historical Grievances Resurface, Threatening to Stall Kyiv's EU Accession (Kyiv Independent, Dinara Khalilova)
- In Poland, for the first time, a majority of citizens opposed accepting Ukrainian refugees: poll (UNN)
- Polish attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees deteriorating, survey shows (Kyiv Independent, Martin Fornusek)
