Author: Zofia Komar ; substantive support: Jędrzej Błaszczak
The situation of Ukrainian refugees in Poland after 2022 exposed the peculiar tension between social mobilization and state policy. The first wave of aid was unprecedented — citizens, NGOs and local structures took on the burden of providing support to refugees before the public administration could make a consequence mechanism. The scale of bottom-up commitment has shown large solidarity, while revealing the state's systemic organisational weaknesses.
However, further steps in the integration process indicated that spontaneous support impulses are not capable of replacing a unchangeable and long-term aid policy conducted top-down. It is on this axis of work — between bottom-up and state organisations — that the main challenges of this article are identified.
Scope and terminology
One of the key factors determining the situation of refugees from Ukraine in Poland after 2022 is the process of their integration into Polish society. This integration is simply a complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic process, depending both on the characteristics of the exile group itself and on the consequence and organization preparation of the host country.
In this chapter, integration is understood as a bilateral process, which includes the adaptation of refugees to fresh surviving conditions and the openness and readiness of the host society to accept and coexist. This process evolves over time, with changes in needs, attitudes, public policies and the socio-political context.
The integration of refugees takes place at 2 essential levels. Firstly, in the behavioural and social dimension, including interpersonal relations, bottom-up activities and the social engagement of citizens and NGOs. Secondly, the organization dimension, which includes systemic public policy instruments — from social and information programmes to regulatory and administrative frameworks. The effectiveness of integration depends mostly on the coherence and complementarity of the 2 spheres.
It is besides essential to separate between exile position and economical migrants. Although both groups can benefit from akin services and support instruments, they disagree in both migration motivation and legal status, which implies different needs and possible integration paths.
The integration of war refugees is so a challenge separate from the classical migration problems and requires another measures. Migration policy must operate in very dynamic conditions, depending on the changing needs of refugees, public opinion and media narrative. It is so essential to constantly update and adapt integration tools.
Situation context
According to the Office for Foreigners data from 2025[1] 1 year, presently around a million Ukrainians benefit from temporary protection in Poland. The PESEL number was given to 993 000 Ukrainian citizens, of which 61% are women (among the adults this percent increases to 77%) and half of this group are children. Additionally, 462,000 refugees have temporary residence permits.
Ukrainian refugees most frequently choose voivodships, where there are large urban centres. The largest percent of them lives in Mazowieckie Voivodeship (22%), and another popular regions are Lower Silesian (12%), Wielkopolska (11%), Małopolska (9%) and Silesia (9%).
The outbreak of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2022 put Poland in an unprecedented situation — as a border state of the European Union, Poland has become both a front country and a major host country for war refugees. In the first year of the conflict, the Polish-Ukrainian border exceeded 9 million people seeking shelter[2].
Poland's consequence to this crisis was multi-vectorial, covering both organization actions and mass social mobilisation. The function of civilian society has been peculiarly important. The bottom-up assistance of individuals and NGOs has become the subject of investigation by psychologists and philosophers[3]. In the first year since the beginning of the full-scale war, as many as 77% of adult Poles participated in relief activities – offering accommodation, financial support, material or volunteering[4]. The main motivations indicated, among others, cultural proximity and prospective fear, namely the fear that a akin situation could affect Poles in the future. About 17,000 refugees found shelter in private homes[5], which indicates a deficiency of trust in state institutions by both Ukrainians and empathetic Poles.
Scope of non-governmental institutions[6] assistance included, among others, food, accommodation, medical and intellectual assistance, legal assistance, financial support, employment support and another integration activities[7]. A peculiar category of assistance was free legal advice on issues related to legalization of stay in Poland, specified as obtaining exile position or protecting workers' rights. The scale and multifaceted bottom-up social engagement was enormous. Paradoxically, specified mass, spontaneous actions created a dangerous situation from a public policy perspective. The State partially waived the work to supply care, at the same time hindering reliable monitoring of the quality of the aid.
The coordination and supervision of citizens' activities were carried out by provincial authorities, and NGOs received recommendations from the level of local authorities in optional form, with the anticipation of backing from the Aid Fund. In practice, local authorities were obliged to supply support, but did not have a mechanics to control it. According to the ultimate Chamber of Control[8], crucial funds from the fund transferred by the voivodes were reimbursed by local government units. This raises the question of the symmetry between the costs incurred by the administration and the efforts of citizens. This is all the more crucial due to the fact that the recipients of the Aid Fund were not obliged to study and the impact of the Fund itself was not assessed.
Social attitudes
One of the key indicators of the effectiveness of the integration of refugees into the host society is common social attitudes. These attitudes are determined primarily by perception: towards the nation, migrants, refugees or the state itself. The diversity of declared attitudes depends on many sociodemographic variables, specified as age, gender, political views or the material situation of respondents. Differences in responses besides arise in the form of aid. Typically, Poles advocate accepting private or ad hoc aid. However, they are clearly discouraged from top-down strategy assistance. The deficiency of assurance in state aid initiatives is due to their perception as slow and risked waste. The effect of social burnout resulted in first enthusiasm giving way to fatigue and distance towards public programs that appear to be late and ineffective.
Dynamic external and interior factors influence the improvement of attitudes towards refugees. These include economical factors (e.g. the economical situation of the host country), media narrative, misinformation, farmers' protests, grain crisis, the duration of the war as well as the sustainability of exile settlements and individual contacts.
The attitude of Poles towards refugees from Ukraine shows clear dynamics. In 2021, over 90% of Poles were ready to accept Ukrainians as neighbours, coworkers or household members[9]. After a full scale invasion in 2022, there was an apogee of sympathy, after which it began to gradually decline.[10]. In 2024 40% of Poles expressed sympathy for Ukrainians and 30% were reluctant to them.[11]. Compared to 2023, support for receiving refugees decreased by 10 percent points, reaching the lowest score since the outbreak of the war (also falling sympathy by 11 points, expanding reluctance by 13 points)[12]. This trend indicates that the earlier social outburst — albeit awesome — became ambiguous, impermanent, and likely to burn out. The bottom-up private aid, initially complementary to state policy, in practice partially replaced it, leading to a burning-out of society and a regulation of assurance in state institutions.
Integration challenges
Subsequent years of the presence of refugees from Ukraine in Poland show that the integration process is not smooth. Difficulties arise both in public institutions and in the social sphere. At the heart of these challenges are public services, the labour market, education and wellness services, but besides language and cultural barriers.
The organization aspect is simply a more visible challenge from a systemic perspective. It mainly concerns public services, i.e. administrative and information assistance. Refugees, especially the elderly, face language and digital barriers in contact with offices[13]. This, as well as the deficiency of language assistants, makes it hard for them to get the required papers or the PESEL number, which translates into unequal access to public services.
In the labour market, despite the comparatively advanced employment rate, refugees inactive face discrimination. Differences in qualifications and acceptance problems make recruitment importantly more difficult.
On the another hand, the education system, burdened with the increase in the number of Ukrainian students, faces shortages of staff. The conflict between Polish and Ukrainian education (Internet) is an additional obstacle.[14], deficiencies in training parents of refugees (e.g. the usage of e-journal in Polish) or exclusion of Ukrainians from the decision-making process. At this point, it should be pointed out that issues relating to the integration of the youngest generations are crucial for the long-term adaptation of common national groups.
In the area of wellness care, in addition to the difficulties in access to services, there is peculiarly a request for intellectual care. Refugees face symptoms of trauma, depression, temporary feeling, intellectual isolation, stress, as well as adaptive difficulties.
At the social level, integration faces obstacles specified as ignorance of the Polish language or conflicts in local communities. Different social identities, cultural differences, stereotypes and misinformation pose a hazard of social marginalisation of refugees.
Applications and strategy Recommendations
The Polish public policy towards refugees from Ukraine has not kept pace with the first upturn of society and has not yet developed a coherent long-term approach to integration. The deficiency of a transparent strategy, the leaning on changing social sentiments, and the strong dependence on bottom-up — frequently informal — made the state incapable to prepare for opposition to subsequent burnout and decline in engagement. As a result, integration is based on fragile foundations: its success depends not on predictable public policy instruments, but on wavered ups and downs of social solidarity.
At the same time, limiting aid mechanisms (limiting access to accommodation in collective accommodation centres or 800 plus) without creating alternate tools means, in practice, shifting the burden back to NGOs and local activists.
In consequence to previously identified difficulties, a number of systemic tools should be strengthened. First of all, the language barrier is the main origin of exclusion, and so it is paramount to guarantee universal and flexible access to Polish language learning. At the same time, it is worth noting the request to invest in programmes that increase professional qualifications and equal opportunities in the labour market.
It is no little crucial to fight stereotypes, discrimination and misinformation which undermine the foundations of affirmative Ukrainian-Polish integration. In this respect, educational activities, social campaigns and the building of open dialog are peculiarly important. Finally, the importance of bottom-up forms of social inclusion, whose impact, including on another sectors of challenges, is invaluable and deserves systemic support.
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