Ukraine calls for Polish politicians to “stop inciting hate” after Ukrainian girls abused on bus

Jul 13, 2026 | Law, Society

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Ukraine’s foreign minister has called on “Polish politicians to stop inciting hatred against Ukrainians” following an incident in which a man was filmed hurling xenophobic obscenities at two Ukrainian girls on a bus in Poland.

After a video recorded by one of the girls was widely shared on social media, Polish police identified and arrested the man, who turned out to be an off-duty employee of the bus company itself. He will now be dismissed from his position while prosecutors will determine what criminal charges he may face.

During the incident, which took place in the city of Bielsko-Biała, the man was heard using obscene and abusive language towards the girls, one of whom recorded what was happening.

“Get out of this fucking country” and “[go] back to your Ukraine”, he is heard saying, also calling one of the passengers a “Ukrainian whore”. At one point, one of the girls also asks him to stop touching her.

The video began to be widely shared on social media on Sunday evening. On Monday morning, Polish interior minister Marcin Kierwiński announced that the perpetrator had been detained.

“Every form of aggression will be met with a decisive response from the state. Let this be a warning to every hater – you will not go unpunished,” wrote Kierwiński on social media.

 

Meanwhile, the municipal bus company in Bielsko-Biała, MZK, issued a statement confirming that, after “a passenger engaged in aggressive behaviour toward two Ukrainian girls”, it had worked with police to help identify the perpetrator.

During the investigation, it was determined that the man in question was a 54-year-old MZK employee who has “been on sick leave for a long time”, said the firm. As a result of the incident, MZK has decided to terminate the man’s contract.

The firm said that it “condemns all behaviour motivated by hatred and prejudice” and that it was working with the city’s mayor, Jarosław Klimaszewski, to contact the affected individuals and provide them with support and compensation.

Later, Klimaszewski confirmed to broadcaster TVN that they had met with the victims and, as an apology, given them free annual city bus passes.

In a social media post that included the original video of the incident, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrij Sybiha, thanked the Polish authorities for their quick action to detain the abuser.

“Such aggression and hatred should not be tolerated in a European democratic society and state,” added Sybiha. “Once again, we call on individual Polish politicians to stop inciting hatred against Ukraine and Ukrainians, which negatively influences anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Polish society.”

Ukrainians are by far Poland’s largest foreign national group, with around 1.5 million living in the country. While Poland welcomed Ukrainian refugees in 2022, there has been growing negative sentiment towards them recently, indicated in polls and through anti-Ukrainian rhetoric from prominent politicians.

There have also been a number of high-profile incidents in which Ukrainians have faced verbal and even physical aggression. Last December, Syhiba urged Poland to clamp down on the “shameful treatment of Ukrainians” following reports of a girl being subjected to abuse in her school.

In May, five Polish teenagers were detained in Warsaw over a violent attack on a group of young Ukrainians. The city’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, blamed the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of right-wing politicians for “encouraging thugs” to carry out these kinds of attacks.

Tensions with Ukraine have since ramped up even further, amid a diplomatic dispute sparked by President Volodomyr Zelensky’s decision to name a military unit after a Ukrainian nationalist group that led massacres of Poles during World War Two.

Last week, two Polish far-right activists were charged over an incident in which they confronted a Ukrainian woman who runs a business that offers assistance to other Ukrainian immigrants.

After the latest case, figures from Poland’s current ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre right, today blamed the right-wing and far-right opposition for inciting such attacks.

“Kaczyński, Braun and Czarnek are doing a great deal to ensure that a brown [fascist] wave washes over Poland,” wrote Kierwiński on social media.

He was referring to Jarosław Kaczyński and Przemysław Czarnek, the leader and deputy leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, and Grzegorz Braun, leader of the radical-right Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP).

“Children are now being attacked because you are hounding [Ukrainians],” said deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz

However, PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek accused government figures of “cynically exploiting the scandalous situation in Bielsko-Biała for political purposes”.

Bochenek said that “every form of violence and aggression”, especially towards children, “should be unequivocally condemned”.

However, he claimed that it is, in fact, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Kierwiński who are “responsible for the brutalisation of public life in Poland” by “deliberately downplaying the previous increase in aggression on Polish streets”.

Bocheński did not provide any examples of what he was referring to. But PiS has regularly complained that, under the current government, police do not take action when PiS politicians face aggression or other forms of abuse.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Poland MFA/Flickr (under CC BY 4.0)

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