Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that with the influx of Ukrainian refugees, the crime rate has risen significantly. Like, among the criminals in Poland there are many Ukrainian refugees. The authors of the messages refer to the research of the local analytical center UCE Research, as well as supposedly to the data of the Polish police. The authors argue that free entry into the European Union “became a good opportunity to realize their criminal intentions”. However, this is fake.

The case was noticed by experts from the StopFake project, they studied that from the reports published on the UCE Research platform, there is no information that the increase in crime in the country was due to the appearance of refugees from Ukraine.

Another source allegedly confirming the thesis about the increase in crime in Poland because of the Ukrainians is the police. However, the Polish police do not provide such data. Ukrainian refugees are mentioned in the annual reports only in the context of the fact that the tasks of the police officers were to protect the places where refugees were staying, the Polish police officers “led and helped organize a meeting for Ukrainians, organized numerous meetings with Ukrainians, and some of them provided them with their homes and helped them find themselves in a foreign country and in a new situation”. None of the police reports talk about the fault of Ukrainian refugees in the increase in the number of crimes in 2022.

One of the materials that really reveals the topic of crimes committed by foreigners in Poland is an article in the publication Rzeczpospolita, which analyzes what crimes were committed by migrants in Poland in 2022. The Main Directorate of the National Police has prepared statistics on crimes committed by foreigners in Poland especially for the publication. So, in total, in 2022, 15 thousand crimes were committed by representatives of different nationalities, most often Ukrainians, as the largest group, as well as Belarusians and Georgians, were included in the statistics. The most common type of crime among foreigners, notes Rzeczpospolita, is driving while intoxicated. In second place in popularity is possession of drugs.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to present Ukrainian refugees as criminals or terrorists, as a cultural and economic threat to the EU, in order to reduce support for Ukraine. We mentioned this in our own investigation.

Analysts of Detector Media denied a number of fakes and manipulations on the topic of Ukrainian refugees in Poland. For example, we analyzed the manipulation of increasing thefts in Polish stores by a third allegedly because of Ukrainian refugees. And we also explained another manipulation, using which propagandists claimed that the attitude of many Poles towards Ukrainians had worsened.