Ukraine Neighbor’s Support for Refugees Hits New Low

Support in Poland for welcoming Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia has dropped to its lowest point since 2022, according to a new survey, with no real end in sight to the conflict and Kyiv facing dilemmas on how to replenish its exhausted ranks.

The poll, conducted by Poland’s Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, or Center for Public Opinion Research, showed that 53 percent of Poles surveyed supported accepting refugees from neighboring Ukraine into the country, according to Poland’s PAP news agency.

This is the lowest figure of support since the early weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the pollster said, according to the agency report.

The poll was conducted between September 12 and 22 2024, with a total of 941 people questioned, the news agency reported. In March 2022, 94 percent of those polled reportedly supported welcoming Ukrainian refugees into Poland. This figure then hovered at around 80 percent in the following year, the report said.

Millions of people fleeing the violence in Ukraine have passed through Poland in more than two and a half years of war. Over 7.5 million refugees fled into the country as the Kremlin’s operations started, the European Investment Bank said in November 2022. Just under a million are registered in Poland.

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, just under 4.2 million people who were not EU citizens and had fled Ukraine had temporary protection status within the union at the end of August. Ukraine is not an EU member.

A previous SBOS poll conducted in April 2024 showed a “clear 10-point drop” in support among Poles for accepting Ukrainian refugees from the previous month.

In late September, the Norwegian government said it would individually assess asylum applications from Ukrainians arriving in the country, depending on how dangerous it deemed their region of origin to be. Ukraine’s Lviv, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano Frankivsk, Ternopil and Rivne regions were deemed safe to return to by Oslo.

The country has received more Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war than any of its Nordic neighbors, numbering 85,000 since early 2022.

“In future, asylum seekers from Ukraine will therefore be treated on a more equal footing to other asylum seekers,” Oslo’s Justice Minister, Emilie Mehl, said in a statement.

Just over two thirds of those polled would support Polish authorities sending Ukrainian male citizens who are of military age back to Ukraine, according to PAP. Around 22 percent of respondents opposed the idea.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski suggested during an appearance in Kyiv last month that European governments should put a stop to welfare benefits given to Ukrainian men who fall under the military age bracket and are currently residing away from their homeland.

“Stop paying those social security payments for people who are eligible for the Ukrainian draft,” Sikorski said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha backed Sikorski’s comments.

Military-age men in both Russia and Ukraine have fled their countries to avoid being drafted, and authorities in Kyiv and Moscow are looking at ways to bolster their tired and depleted ranks heading into another tough winter season.