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Over six million Ukrainians have settled elsewhere in Europe since Russia's full-scale invasion of their country in February 2022. Approximately 4.3 million have been granted temporary protection. This allows them to reside and work freely in European Union member states.
According to statistics from the UNHCR, Poland is the EU country that hosts the most Ukrainian refugees (usually meaning asylum or temporary protection): 1,903,100 of them as of January 2025. It is followed by Germany (1,168,535), Czech Republic (636,595), Spain (231,755), and Italy (207,150).
In the EU, Ukrainians have generally received a better welcome than other refugees of non-European origin. Yet, more than three years after the 2022 invasion, anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is gaining ground in Central Europe. With the help of our partners in the Pulse project, we have gathered information on the situations in Poland, Czechia, Romania and Hungary.
“Poland first”
On 25 August, Poland's President Karol Nawrocki vetoed an amendment to the law on assistance to Ukrainian citizens. It had proposed, among other things, to extend their protection until 2026. As reported by Michał Kokot in the independent newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Nawrocki's explanation is that he expected the government to include a provision in the law stipulating that family allowances would only be paid to Ukrainians who work and pay taxes in Poland. “‘Poland first, Poles first’ is not just an election slogan”, Nawrocki has repeated, referring to his campaign motto.
What do the figures say? Michał Kokot points to a Deloitte report for the Polish National Bank, which found that 78 percent of Ukrainian citizens in Poland have a job. Ukrainians contributed 15 billion złoty (approximately €350 million) to the Polish budget and a 2.7 percent increase in GDP.
In the country, the rhetoric of politicians changes with public opinion, reports Kokot. Sympathy towards Ukrainians is waning: in 2023, 64 percent of Poles viewed them positively; by early 2025, that had fallen to 53 percent. In addition, a recent poll revealed that over 19 percent of Poles are in favour of depriving Ukrainians of their right to family benefits.
Ukrainians are “treated better than the Czechs”
In the Czech Republic, anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is the subject of competition between Andrej Babiš’s ANO party (which emerged victorious from the elections on 3 and 4 October), and Tomio Okamura's far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD). In June, Okamura criticized a proposal to grant maternity benefits to Ukrainian women living in Czechia. A few days later, Babiš took up the same position. A third opposition group, the pro-Russian Stačilo! coalition, has joined in the competition. Stačilo! is a coalition of part of the left linked to the Communist Party and various ultranationalist-leaning protest movements. It argues that the Czech Republic should work for “peace”.
Czechia's populists and far right have two favourite talking points. One is that Ukrainian refugees are treated better than Czech citizens; the other is that Ukrainians are rich enough not to need help, or else that they come from regions where there is no war.
In Deník Referendum, Petr Jedlicka looks at the facts. There are 373,000 Ukrainian refugees registered in Czechia. Of the 89,000 who receive benefits, half are children, a third are pensioners, and the rest are people with disabilities or women on maternity leave.
Half of the refugees have jobs and do not receive any welfare payments. The data also shows that the Czech economy is benefiting significantly from Ukrainian refugees. In the first quarter of 2025, total spending on refugees amounted to €155 million, while in the same period they paid €286 million in taxes and duties.
Orbán’s ”poll” on Ukraine’s EU accession
In Hungary, it is the question of Ukraine's EU membership – a still far-off prospect– that is being used for political purposes, explains Kata Moravecz of HVG.
The government of Viktor Orbán conducted a national survey on the issue last June. Sent to all households, the questionnaire began by asserting that Ukrainian EU membership would be a severe blow to Hungary's economy and would cause a decline in Hungarians’ standard of living. Crime would also increase, it added. The government claims to have received two million completed questionnaires, in which 95 percent of Hungarians expressed their opposition to Ukraine's EU bid.
Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition Tisza party, alleges that in reality only half a million completed questionnaires were returned to the government. He cites sources in the Hungarian postal service. Neither he nor Fidesz, the ruling party, have provided evidence to support their claims.
In recent years, Viktor Orbán's government has done everything possible to discourage people from seeking asylum in Hungary. According to UNICEF, there are currently 61,000 Ukrainians in the country, 47,000 of whom have only temporary protection.
In Romania, sympathy is flipping
In neighbouring Romania, only 21 percent of respondents in a survey by the Inscop Research institute perceived Ukrainian immigrants as a serious problem, says Nicolae Cotruț of HotNews. Yet, he adds, the public mood is changing.
In September 2023, 64 percent of Romanians believed that Russia should withdraw its army entirely from Ukraine. Today, that figure stands at 56 percent. Those who believe that Ukraine should cede Russian-occupied territories to Moscow now number 33 percent, up from 24 percent two years ago.
“If this trend continues, these percentages could reverse, although that is not certain“, says Remus Stefureac, founder of the Inscop institute, which conducted the study. ”However, Russian propaganda remains highly aggressive, and those who sympathize with it, regardless of their political affiliation, are very vocal."
According to Stefureac, the 21 percent of respondents who consider Ukrainian immigration a serious problem are becoming the perfect target for extremist parties. That could tilt the electoral balance in their favour.
Same xenophobia, different target
The case of anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is interesting because it mirrors the rhetoric against immigration in Western Europe. The discourse is similar, but the target is different.
Why is that? “The reason for this difference is the different migration landscape between East and West”, offers Denys Gorbach, a Ukrainian sociologist and political scientist. “Eastern Europe has not experienced significant waves of migration from non-European countries, which partly explains the virulent reaction of these countries against any reception initiative, particularly in the context of the Dublin system after 2015, where it has been a kind of ‘remote’ xenophobia.”
Only recently have Eastern European countries “got their own migrants: Ukrainians”, as Gorbach puts it. “Even before the 2022 invasion, they had a considerable population of economic migrants from Ukraine, and now hundreds of thousands of refugees have been added. This sets in motion the same mechanisms of racialization and nativism that are at work in the West. In the end, we have ‘our own’ minorities to hate.”
As Gorbach sees it, the role of Ukrainian refugees is filled by other “foreign” minorities in Western Europe: Turks in Germany, North Africans and other Africans in France, Moroccans and Turks in Belgium, for example.
Furthermore, in France, for example, there are only around 70,000 Ukrainian exiles. That is a tiny number set against the country's population of over 68 million. “In addition to being fewer in number, Ukrainian refugees in Western Europe are mostly women. They are less visible and on average have more cultural and economic capital than those who moved to Eastern Europe.”
Another difference: xenophobic propaganda in Western Europe “paints the image of a refugee as a dark-skinned, solitary, violent man”, says Gorbach. “Ukrainians, meanwhile, are considered white and, above all, they are mostly women, single mothers, sometimes with elderly parents to care for. In other words, it is more difficult to portray them as public enemies. There are easier targets.”
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