Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters against Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. But the nationalist camp, which Nawrocki seeks to lead, has sought to capitalize on tensions over the Ukrainian presence in Poland and the wartime massacres.
Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is already intensifying ahead of the fall 2027 parliamentary election, when Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s broadly pro-Ukraine coalition will face the nationalist Law and Justice party and two other far-right parties. Polls show Tusk is far from certain of victory.
The libertarian Confederation party denounced Ukrainians getting social welfare, while Gregorz Braun, the European Parliament member who leads the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown party, said: “The Kyiv regime is neither our ally nor our friend, it is our enemy,” during a summer gathering commemorating the wartime killing of Polish civilians by Ukrainians.
Przemysław Czarnek, the candidate for prime minister from the Law and Justice party, said July: “Military aid to Ukraine must be suspended until that country changes its historical policy.”
Rafał Pankowski, a sociology professor at Warsaw’s Civitas University and co-founder of the Polish anti-racism group Never Again, believes that while the Polish population is broadly supportive of Ukraine, fissures are beginning to show.
“Solidarity with Ukrainians remains strong among many Poles, but populist anti-Ukrainian rhetoric has created fertile ground for attacks, turning a large and visible minority into a target and helping verbal hostility spill into violence. Russian propaganda seized on the opportunity, too,” he said.