Warsaw has steadily tightened benefit payouts to Ukrainians since Karol Nawrocki took office in June
Warsaw will only provide welfare for Ukrainian migrants for one more year, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday.
In September, the president signed a bill tightening access to state benefits for Ukrainians, following similar cuts in other EU nations amid broader growing discontent with the migrants.
“I emphasized... that I signed this bill to help Ukrainians for the last time,” Nawrocki said at a rally on Friday.
“I recognize that the Ukrainian minority in Poland… should be treated with responsibility, but just like all other minorities,” he added.
Under the new law, welfare is reserved only for Ukrainians who are employed and whose children attend local schools.
Since November 1, Warsaw also restricted free housing in collective accommodation centers to only the most vulnerable Ukrainian migrants.
Poland has been one of Kiev’s main backers since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, providing them some $5.85 billion, mostly in military aid, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute.
Despite this, broader public support for Ukrainians has cratered since 2022, with just over half of Poles viewing state benefits for them as too generous, Bloomberg wrote last week, citing a recent poll. At least 2.5 million Ukrainians currently live in Poland, according to recent government data.
Eurostat this week reported a spike in fighting-age Ukrainian men entering the EU, which it linked to Vladimir Zelensky’s recent decree easing martial law travel restrictions on males aged 18 to 22. Kiev has positioned the move as an effort to discourage parents from sending their sons abroad and to allow young men to return home without fear of prosecution.
Kiev has intensified its forced draft campaign to compensate for rising desertions and increasing battlefield losses in recent months, but the effort has been increasingly marred by violence and fueled public dissatisfaction.
