"Iʼm afraid to speak. Iʼm afraid they will retaliate."
Karina Kitsai moved to Poland over ten years ago. Three years later, her children — a son Pavlo and a daughter Nastya — came to her. Nastya is now 20 years old and lives in Wrocław with her boyfriend Maksym, who is also Ukrainian. Until the end of July, the girl considered Wrocław a safe city.
It all started with a question at the store checkout: “Are you Ukrainian?”.
Karina tells Babel about the attack on Nastya and how it affected the family. She was the one who gave the story publicity on social networks. Before the conversation, the woman admits that after the attack on her daughter, she is wary of strangers and is afraid to speak Ukrainian.
On Sunday, July 26, Nastya and Maksym went to the lake with their dog. On the way home, they stopped at the “Żabka” store. Maksym stayed in the car, and Nastya went in to buy food. When she was already standing at the checkout, three Poles took beer from the refrigerator and put it in front of her. The girl remarked to them that there was a line, after which one of the men asked if she was Ukrainian.
“It doesn’t matter who I am, but there is a line for everyone,” Nastya replied in Polish. Due to excitement, a Ukrainian accent became noticeable in her pronunciation. The man began to swear and shout insults.
A screenshot from a video taken by an eyewitness from the balcony. This is the recording that Nastyaʼs mother later published on social media, on July 26, 2026. Nastya after the attack.
Personal archives of heroes / «Бабель»
Nastya decided not to react to the provocations, but the Poles followed her to the car. There the argument escalated into an attack — Maksym got out of the car, the men knocked him to the ground and started kicking him. Nastya tried to intervene, but one of the attackers hit her in the face and head several times. The girl fell on her back and started screaming. The attackers moved away, but as soon as Nastya and Maksym started to get up, they attacked them again.
After the fight, Nastya was left with bruises on her face and nose, and numerous bruises all over her body. In addition, her ear and neck were stitched up — one of the attackers hit her with the handle of a knife. Maksym has bruises on his face and body.
“Physically, it’s healing well, so that it can heal mentally. Nastya is scared. I’m scared,” says Karina. Nastya is currently seeing a psychologist, and the family is trying not to mention the attack again.
Two attackers were detained and imprisoned for three months. They are 27 and 45 years old, both have been in the policeʼs sights before. One of them was detained by the policeʼs anti-terrorist unit as he tried to leave Wrocław. The third attacker is still being sought.
"I think I see those tattooed ducks everywhere now. Iʼm afraid to speak out. Iʼm afraid theyʼll take revenge," says Nastyaʼs mother.
One of the attackers was identified on CCTV footage by a bandage on his left leg. He is a boxer named Adam C., nicknamed "Tsitsu". He is affiliated with the Gromda federation, which organizes bare-knuckle fights. "Tsitsu" has previously served time in prison.
Threads
This fear was also passed on to her relatives. When Karinaʼs sister from Ukraine came to visit, Karina spoke to her in Polish. Her sister replied in Ukrainian.
Hearing this, her five-year-old son burst into tears, began to cover his motherʼs mouth and ask her to be quiet: "Mom, I beg you, donʼt talk. Iʼm afraid theyʼll beat you like Nastya."
After Karina spoke about the attack on social media, some commentators began to criticize the family for living abroad.
“They wrote: ʼYou haven’t given enough, go back and defend the country.’ And my husband, Nastya’s father, has been fighting in Ukraine as a volunteer since the start of the full-scale invasion,” she says.
The attack in Wroclaw is one of a number of similar public incidents in recent months. In the first half of 2026, Ukrainian citizens filed 180 reports of alleged hate crimes — a 30% increase over the same period in 2025.
Other public cases of attacks on Ukrainians in Poland, May — August 2026
-
A group of ten people attacked 16-year-old Ukrainian Artem and his friends. They broke Artemʼs skull, broke his friendʼs nose, and tried to throw the third boy over the railing of a bridge over the Vistula River. The attackers shouted, among other things, "Get out of here, go to Ukraine."
-
At a bus stop, a Pole beat up a 14-year-old Ukrainian named David. The boy allegedly refused to show his son tricks on a scooter. David was insulted for his Ukrainian origin, and then the man punched him in the face several times.
-
A group of teenagers beat up 19-year-old Volodymyr a few minutes after he spoke to his mother on the phone in Ukrainian. He suffered a broken nose and a spinal injury. According to the boy, after the incident, the attackers laughed that they had "beaten up a Ukrainian."
-
A man insulted Ukrainian girls on a city bus — they recorded it on video. One of them asked him if he could not touch her. In response, he called the child a “Ukrainian prostitute” and ordered her to “go back to Ukraine.”
-
A woman beat up two 13-year-old girls and a boy who rushed to protect them on a playground. When one of the girls asked the attacker why she was doing it, she was told, "Because youʼre from Ukraine."
-
Two men harassed and insulted a 16-year-old Ukrainian. According to eyewitnesses online, they also shouted xenophobic slogans against Ukrainians and Belarusians.
-
Three Ukrainians, including a woman, were beaten up while they were relaxing in a hostel. A man passing by didnʼt like the music coming from their car. He shouted, "Fuck off Ukraine," and then returned with a group of men who started beating the Ukrainians.
"I thought my head had split in half"
Alla Kondratenko and her son moved from Zaporizhzhia to Poland five years ago, before the full-scale war began. By then, her husband had already lived in Gdynia for eight years. The family speaks fluent Polish and, according to Alla, felt safe from the moment they moved.
However, they tried not to speak Ukrainian anywhere, so as not to "attract too much attention". The feeling of safety disappeared literally in a day.
At about 3 p.m. on July 30, Alla was returning home from work on her usual route. Near the house, she met a Ukrainian woman she knew and her granddaughter and stopped to talk. She noticed an elderly man nearby.
“He was old, hunched over, wearing a long-sleeved jacket and a cap. He had some kind of bag and a stick next to him. I had seen him before, he looked like a homeless person,” Alla recalls. The man began to walk around her, as if trying to get behind her: he would go down and then up the nearby street stairs.
When her friend left, Alla stayed in the same place to record a voice message for her friend in Ukrainian. At some point, the woman felt two blows — they can be clearly heard in the voice message recording.
“It was so painful that I thought my head was just going to split in half. I was bleeding like someone was pouring water on me. At that moment, I turned around and saw him [the elderly man],” she says.
Alla Kondratenko after the attack. According to her, when the ambulance arrived, even the medics were shocked by what they saw. “I thought there was no head there,” she says of the wounds on her head from the blows with a stick.
Personal archives of heroes / «Бабель»
She received 11 stitches in the hospital. She gave the police a photo, video, and the same voice message recording with two punches. The attacker was detained on August 1. Law enforcement officers are analyzing the collected evidence, but note that at this point there is no reason to believe that the attack was committed due to national hatred.
“Maybe anyone could have been in your place?” the policeman asked Alla.
But she is sure that this happened because she is Ukrainian: “I did not provoke him in any way, we did not even have contact. But he walked near us and heard us and the children around us talking in Ukrainian.”
The woman is now recovering, but admits that she is scared: "Scary is not the right word. At first, I was afraid to even walk down the street, I looked every person in the eye. And I generally avoid the area where everything happened."
"They really donʼt care. They hear an Eastern accent, and thatʼs it, thatʼs enough for them."
Press Club Polska and the analytical company Res Futura monitored Polish-language posts about Ukrainians on social media throughout July. In different weeks, the share of hostile messages averaged about 45%. The share of favorable posts increased from 0.6 to 5.8% in the last two weeks of monitoring.
The Internet has become one of the catalysts of aggression, says Belarusian journalist, former war correspondent in Ukraine and disinformation counter-analyst Dmytro Galko. In July, he organized a “Good Neighborhood” picket against xenophobia in Warsaw.
“We will not defeat bots on the Internet, because troll farms always create the illusion of numerical superiority. Ordinary users often do not check aggressive comments, and so bots radicalize real people,” he explained to the Polish PAP agency.
In a conversation with Babel, Galko says that aggression due to an "eastern" accent affects not only Ukrainians, but also Belarusians and Poles, who are mistakenly considered Ukrainians. This summer, a Pole was beaten in Lodz, whom the attacker mistook for a Ukrainian — the man suffered a broken nose and jaw. In Gdansk, a drunken man attacked a Ukrainian and two Poles, calling everyone "Banderaists".
"They really donʼt care. They hear an eastern accent, and thatʼs it, they drove them away," says Galko.
Polish historian and director of the Juliusz Mieroszewski Center for Dialogue, Łukasz Adamski, believes that the very place of Ukrainians in Polish society has changed. In 2022, they were perceived primarily as temporary guests who needed help. Now Ukrainians have become a visible part of Polish society, and talk of solidarity is increasingly being replaced by arguments about integration, work, and social support.
The second reason, according to Adamski, is political competition ahead of the 2027 parliamentary elections. The moderately conservative Law and Justice (PiS) is competing for the right-wing electorate with the Confederation and the Confederation of the Polish Crown of Grzegorz Braun, the most radical and xenophobic of the three forces.
Protest in Warsaw during the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky. One of the leaders of the Polish far-right party "Confederation" Sławomir Menzen voices demands to the authorities of Poland and Ukraine: to suspend financial assistance to Ukraine, restrict the entry of Ukrainian citizens to Poland, and urgently allow the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy, December 19, 2025.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
Seeking to seize the initiative, PiS proposed deporting Ukrainian men of draft age who do not have legal employment from Poland so that they could serve in Ukraine.
There has always been a segment of aggressive, xenophobic, and nationalistic people in Poland, Adamski suggests. When a pro-Ukrainian atmosphere prevailed in society, they could restrain themselves. Now some of them have decided that it is okay to show their attitude.
How are the authorities reacting?
The beating of a Ukrainian couple in Wroclaw was reacted to both in Ukraine and in Poland, in particular, by the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andriy Sybiha, the Mayor of Wroclaw Jacek Sutryk, and the Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk.
Tusk said right-wing politicians who give radicals a sense of political patronage are partly responsible for the surge in violence. He also called on President Karol Nawrocki to speak out about the attacks.
At the same time, Vasyl Bodnar, who is completing his work as the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland, assessed the reaction of the Polish authorities as quick and adequate: "The government, courts, and prosecutorʼs office are responding promptly, especially to high-profile cases. Investigations are ongoing or suspects have already been detained for all incidents known to us. People are even fired for verbal insults. The prosecutorʼs office has created a special unit that investigates crimes motivated by prejudice or national hatred.”
Brussels also reacted to the incident. In response to Babelʼs inquiry, a spokesperson for the European Commission stated that they condemn any hate crimes and hate speech and monitor how EU countries, including Poland, implement regulations to combat racism and xenophobia.
"Equal treatment, non-discrimination and solidarity are fundamental principles of the European Union," the spokesman noted. He also recalled that the European Commission provides special funding to EU countries that host Ukrainian refugees.
"My Poland does not beat, does not insult, and does not harass"
The first July picket against hate speech and aggression against Ukrainians was organized by Belarusian Dmytro Galko via social media in a few days.
According to him, despite the heat and the holiday season in Warsaw, more than a hundred people came. At least 85% of the participants in these protests are Poles themselves.
According to Galko, many of them have friends or colleagues among Ukrainians and understand that if a million-strong minority is discriminated against and forced to silence, this directly threatens Polish democracy.
About 100 people — Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarusians — gathered on August 2 near the King Sigismund Column on Castle Square in Warsaw with calls for solidarity and resistance to aggression. The organizer of the picket is Belarusian journalist and disinformation countermeasure analyst Dmytro Galko.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
At the same time, Ukrainians and Belarusians are increasingly afraid to speak their native language in public, says Dmytro: "For example, I appealed to the owners of Ukrainian establishments to support our picket in Warsaw with some goodies. But I saw that people were already afraid."
On August 7, a separate action "My Poland Does Not Hit, Insult, or Harass" took place in Warsaw. Its participants submitted a petition with over 11 000 signatures to the Prime Ministerʼs Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, demanding a decisive response to attacks on Ukrainians.
On August 9, the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD) organized demonstrations in 22 cities under the slogan "Do not be indifferent" — a reference to a speech by former Auschwitz prisoner Marian Tursky.
On January 27, 2020, at a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he called for not standing aside when minorities are discriminated against, human rights are violated, or history is distorted.
Demonstration in Warsaw against violence, hatred, xenophobia and discrimination amid attacks on Ukrainians in Poland.
Participants in the August protests were given stickers with the inscription "Do not be indifferent". On the doors of shops, cafes, or cars, they symbolized solidarity with Ukrainians and rejection of xenophobia.
Organizers are planning a larger-scale protest for August 24 and want to gather thousands of people.
Amid the escalation of the situation in Poland, the Ukrainian authorities are reminding Ukrainians of their rights and what to do if they are attacked. At the beginning of the year, the Embassy of Ukraine in Poland issued a special memorandum — "Duties and Rights of Ukrainian Citizens in Poland. How to Act in Crisis Situations".
It contains an algorithm of actions if you are attacked, intimidated or discriminated against, as well as explanations of how to properly communicate with the Polish police and what legal norms to refer to.