While now only 53% of Poles support the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees according to the survey, in February 2022 this figure was 94% and by the end of the year it had not fallen below 80%. The decline did not occur until 2023, with CBOS explaining it as a “grain crisis”, the EURACTIV server recapitulates the conclusions of the survey.
Grain crisis
The aforementioned crisis occurred when, in the middle of 2022, the European Union started trade with the attacked country out of solidarity. The Polish market was subsequently flooded with Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products, due to which the prices of domestic production fell drastically.
40% of Poles are now openly against accepting Ukrainian refugees, whereas in March 2022 only two percent were against it. They are more in favor of Polish men (60%) than women (47%). As far as the political spectrum is concerned, more left-wing voters (68%) than right-wing voters (53%) support the acceptance of refugees from Ukraine.
67% of Poles are in favor of sending Ukrainian men of fighting age back to their homeland, and 22% of them are openly against it. According to the survey, almost exclusively left-wing voters are against it.
The survey also included other questions than just those about Ukrainian refugees. For example, it emerged from those that 51% of Poles are now worried that Russia will use nuclear weapons. Even this number has decreased since the beginning of the Russian invasion, specifically by 26%.
46% of those polled said that Ukraine should continue to fight, while 39% of them support peace even at the cost of territorial or political concessions on the part of Ukraine. 44% of Poles think that Ukraine will have to give up part of its territory, 19% believe that Russia will withdraw from the territory it has occupied since the beginning of the year, and 6% believe that it will also withdraw from the territory already occupied since 2014.
Survey
Do you support the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees?
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