Three years on, the honeymoon is over for Poland's Ukrainian refugees

More than a million people fleeing the war have brought many benefits, but a painful history between the two nations and the far-right is stirring divisions.

- Adam Hsakou in Warsaw reports

Since arriving in Poland three years ago, Vladyslav, a 28-year-old Ukrainian man, has gone from one odd job to another: cleaning, car washing and warehouse work before landing a shelf-stacking job in a supermarket in the town of Ząbki, a few miles east of Warsaw.

Originally from Izium, in eastern Ukraine, he left home six months into the war to avoid compulsory military service. "I didn't want to take up arms, to kill, and to fall deeper into depression," he explains in hesitant Polish, brushing back his blond fringe, as he restocks the sweets aisle.

Vladyslav was one of 1.4 million Ukrainians who fled across the border into neighbouring Poland in the weeks and months after Russia launched its full-scale invasions in February 2022.

At first they were greeted with open arms. Poles organised humanitarian convoys to the border, welcomed refugees in railway stations, and offered shelter to families. "We will welcome all those in need," Polish president Andrzej Duda promised with solemn conviction on 4 March 2022, speaking from the Polish-Ukrainian border, as long queues of people fleeing war stretched behind him, along the crossing.

If there was one issue capable of securing cross-party support amid an intensely polarised political landscape, from Jarosław Kaczyński's nationalist Law and Justice party to prime minister Donald Tusk's liberal Civic Platform, it was the framing of the Kremlin as an existential threat.

Since then attitudes have hardened. Today, 38% of Poles say they feel an aversion towards Ukrainians, with only 30% holding a positive view of them. That marks a drop of 10 percentage points from the previous year, and 21 points compared with 2023.