Day: September 3, 2026

“I am Anna. This house in Odesa was bombed,” I said. “Let’s crowdsource for power banks for Ukraine.”

I sent it to a friend in Warsaw who posted it to her Facebook page, where she has 1,400 “friends.” Within 48 hours, my video generated a whopping 955 comments, 950 of them anti-Ukrainian — almost all in Polish and many obscene. I was shocked by the quantity, but sadly not by the tone.

I regularly shuttle between Poland and Ukraine; as a volunteer with the nongovernmental organization Assist Ukraine, I deliver donated cars to Ukrainian servicemen. When I am in Warsaw, I see that attitudes since the start of the war have changed.

Where did Polish solidarity go? In the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, Poles opened their country to their neighbors. Nine million Ukrainians came through the border; I was there and remember the spontaneous crowds with sandwiches and thermoses, free rides and accommodation. Back then, 78 percent of Poles supported military aid — and indeed it poured into Ukraine from, and through, Poland.

That was then.

Today a majority of Poles criticize military help to Ukraine and 52 percent no longer want to admit refugees. Most Ukrainians who chose Poland — linguistically, culturally and geographically close to them — as a safe haven are bewildered and some are planning to move to another country.

Resentment plays a part. Ukrainians are seen as competing on the Polish labor market — and Ukrainian women on the dating market as well. Polish farmers resented that Ukraine could export its grain to the European Union tariff-free, and they blocked its trucks on the border. Many Poles seem to believe that Ukrainian refugees are a drain on the budget, even though they are in fact net contributors.

You often hear it said in Warsaw (and Washington too) that Ukrainians are not grateful enough. In my opinion, the whole of Europe should be grateful to Ukrainian fighters for stopping Russians in their tracks. The Poles should be most grateful of all.

Poland also cannot accept that some figures from Ukraine’s nationalist past — Stepan Bandera in particular — remain in its pantheon, their likeness on coffee mugs and T-shirts. Many Poles see them as toxic characters.

The two countries’ painfully entangled past is a source of friction. In 1943, members of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known by its Ukrainian acronym, UPA, massacred Polish civilians. Poland claims there were 100,000 victims of the “Volhynia genocide.” Ukraine disputes this number, refers to the killings as the “Volhynia tragedy” and points out that thousands of Ukrainians died in reprisals. In spite of the ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine allows Polish historians to carry out exhumations on its territory.

Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, never visited Kyiv. When he received his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Warsaw last year, he handed him two volumes on Volyhnia. This is a bit like welcoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz with a coffee-table book on Auschwitz.

Last May, Zelensky bestowed on a Ukrainian special forces unit the name “Heroes of the UPA.” The UPA fought the Soviets in and after World War II, and remain a potent symbol for Ukrainians. Within days, a furious Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of Poland’s highest state honor. The famous Polish dissident Adam Michnik declared Nawrocki’s gesture a “shame and disgrace.” Michnik was almost alone in his protest. Most Polish politicians supported Nawocki’s decision or remained silent. A serving Polish minister now says Ukraine will not be admitted to European Union if it “comes with Bandera on the banner,” and the Polish opposition’s candidate for prime minister called for all military aid to be suspended.

Social media is perhaps the ultimate exacerbator of discord. Poland’s deputy digital minister said recently that Russian ​disinformation exploded across social and official Russian media in the wake of the presidential spat. This poison was then amplified on Polish networks. Press Club Poland, which monitors perceptions of the Ukrainian community on social media, saw the proportion of negative posts rise from 15 percent in May to 22 percent in June, before spiking to 49 percent in July. Another prominent think tank reports that Polish-language anti-Ukrainian content increased by more than 250 percent on X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube since May. This is part of what must have come my way in those 950 comments.

Some analysts suggest that much of this filth may well be bot-generated, designed to give the impression that the intensity of the animosity is greater than it is. But when prominent figures and organizations on the Polish far-right are regularly sharing it with their followers, the line between a foreign influence campaign and domestic politics becomes blurred.

On Aug. 15, Prime Minister Donald Tusk singled out the right-wing opposition politicians for turning voters against Ukraine, and made the case for Poland helping its neighbor. “Polish-Ukrainian relations can be debated, but no one can doubt that supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia is for our security,” he said. “We do it for ourselves, for Poles, and for no one else.”

Many of my worried Polish friends felt a bit better hearing his words. Perhaps Tusk’s appeal to self-interest can reach those who have been poisoned. But there is no easy recipe for how to repair bilateral relations and save a crucial alliance against a dangerous common enemy.

I will soon take my 53rd trip to Ukraine, driving a donated car from Helsinki to Kharkiv. And I continue to raise funds to buy power banks and tourniquets. It’s the least I can do to help. If the Ukrainians prevail in their struggle, their monumental sacrifice will have kept my country safe.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN, Sept 2 (Reuters) – European ​Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia, including with new sanctions, after an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in ‌Germany that she said showed Moscow’s growing “recklessness”.

Airport workers last month found a drone laden with explosives and a detonator at the airport, an important civilian freight and NATO logistics hub in eastern Germany that is also a base for several giant Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo planes.

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Germany blamed Moscow for the attack, characterising it as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and cause divisions in countries that have rallied around Ukraine since Russia’s ​2022 invasion.

Russia denies involvement. It says it will respond to what its foreign ministry spokesperson called “anti-Russian action”, and summoned Germany’s top diplomat in Moscow.

“Europe and NATO will not just maintain our ​pressure on Russia; we will increase it, and we will not stop – not until Russia stops bombing and killing innocent children, men and ⁠women in Ukraine,” von der Leyen said in Brussels after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

“Europeans are faced with the hard truth that this is the new normal. ​We have to step up, and that means being ready to respond to Russia’s recklessness faster and better.”

The full scope of new sanctions was not immediately clear.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas ​said the bloc was working on sanctions related to Russia’s military complex, and France’s foreign minister called for action against Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of ships accused of circumventing energy sanctions.

Rutte said more drones and missiles had crossed into NATO airspace on Europe’s eastern flank, and there was an increase in malign activities including the Leipzig attack.

“If Russia thinks we will be divided by the threat, or if they think we will ​be deterred from supporting Ukraine, they are mistaken,” he said.

The EU and several EU member states summoned Russian embassy officials. Germany said it would close Russia’s consulate general in Bonn ​and terminate its agreement with the Russian House cultural centre in Berlin.

TWO SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED, MEDIA OUTLETS SAY

Details of two Leipzig attack suspects were reported by German media outlets Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR.

A police officer in protective clothing works at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Schkeuditz, Germany, August 5, 2026, after the police said explosives experts examined a drone near a runway, and after a DHL cargo aircraft hit an unknown object as it was climbing away from the airport overnight, prompting an unscheduled landing in… Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more

Investigators have identified ‌the logistics ⁠coordinator and instructor behind the attack, the outlets reported.

The man, Russian-born but holding a Latvian passport, was believed to have ties to Russian intelligence, they said. He is thought to have flown into Berlin in late July and driven a rental car towards Leipzig. Two days before the failed drone attack, the suspect left Germany by plane, they reported.

The second suspect was a man from Belarus who also holds a Russian passport and is thought to have entered the country on an Italian tourist visa obtained in Minsk, the outlets said.

Germany’s Public Prosecutor General ​did not immediately respond to a request for ​comment. Russia also did not immediately comment ⁠further on the case.

GERMANY PROBES SABOTAGE CASES

As the EU prepared its response, Germany was grappling with two new suspected sabotage cases within 24 hours.

In the first, authorities were investigating vandalism at a substation in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) that prompted lignite power plant units with 4,200 megawatts (MW) ​in combined capacity to go off the grid.

In the other, also on Tuesday, devices carrying conductive material damaged power lines at one of ​the most critical high-voltage ⁠nodes in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

NRW’s interior minister said the work of foreign powers or left-wing extremists could not be ruled out.

Brandenburg’s interior minister, Jan Redmann, said there appeared to be parallels between the attacks but that investigations were at an early stage.

The incidents come at a sensitive time as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which calls for closer ties to Moscow, is topping polls before ⁠a state election ​this weekend.

Lawmaker Alexander Throm, an interior policy expert from Germany’s ruling conservatives, said it was striking that such ​incidents were occurring before elections.

“The clear goal is to unsettle the public. Of course, that is a goal shared not only by Russia but also by others, such as left-wing extremists,” Throm told Reuters.

Additional reporting by Bart H. ​Meijer, Padraic Halpin, Conor Humphries, John Irish, Dominique Vidalon, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Lili Bayer, Christoph Steitz, Matthias Inverardi and Miranda Murray; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Timothy Heritage

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