The Polish-Ukrainian Honeymoon Is Over: At first, Poles embraced the Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s war. Feelings have since cooled dramatically. What went wrong? >Social media buzzes with accusations. Ukrainian women are stealing Polish husbands, taking Polish jobs, clogging the health care system. The 2025 presidential election campaign was shaped by the Ukrainian issue. After right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki won, legislation was enacted curbing refugees’ rights. In September 2025, President Nawrocki announced that he wouldn’t sign any new laws that prolong special residency rights for Ukrainians fleeing the war, such as simplified access to the labor market and automatic legal stay, which have been in place since the beginning of the war. Those special rights expired on March 5, 2026. Other politicians, even more to the right, accused Ukrainians of bringing “AIDS, gangsters, and prostitutes” into Poland. Between 2023 and 2025, hate crimes against Ukrainians went up 49 percent.…