Whose ●RECponsibility?
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has now lasted longer than the First World War.
Millions of people have been forced to flee their homeland, Ukraine – particularly women.
Neighbouring Poland is home to the second-largest number of Ukrainian refugee women in Europe. According to the UNHCR, there were approximately 570,000 at the end of 2025.
Yet numbers can only tell us so much about how refugee women are perceived by the people around them.
So we went out onto the streets of Warsaw and asked:
What do you think of when you hear the words women refugees?
But what about the Ukrainian women living in Poland themselves?
To figure out how they feel, we visited the Klub Ukraińskich Kobiet (Ukrainian Women’s Club) in Warsaw.
The club is open only to women and has become a place where many have found friendship, support, and a sense of community.
Some weeks they take boxing classes, other weeks they join workshops or creative activities.
Today, they have gathered to knit.
One of the women we talked to, was Svitlana.
Originally from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, she now calls Warsaw home. Her journey to Poland began two years ago, driven by circumstances that many Ukrainians know all too well.
And when asked about what prompted her to leave, Svitlana notes that the core reason requires little explanation.
The circumstances that forced me to leave are quite obvious, so there is probably no need to dwell on them. It was just getting quite scary in Kharkiv, so I decided to leave.
When the conversation turns to the rumours of growing tension or conflict situations regarding Ukrainians in Poland, Svitlana emphasizes that she has only heard about them secondhand.
Still, the issue is present in the minds of many Ukrainians living in Poland.
At a diplomatic level, tensions between Poland and Ukraine are currently undeniable. The "UPA " is at the centre of these tensions.
What is UPA?
Formed in 1942, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fought for Ukrainian independence against Nazi and Soviet rule. Its legacy remains controversial due to its role in the Volhynia massacres of an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians.
Recent honours for the UPA by Kyiv have strained relations, with Warsaw threatening to block Ukraine's EU accession unless the glorification ends.
Another woman we spoke to at the club, who wished to remain anonymous, shared her story. Originally from Lviv, she now lives in Warsaw.
For her, Warsaw has become a place, where she found comfort amidst uncertainty.
Initially, I thought I’d move further into Europe, but I ended up staying here. I realized that Poland is quite comfortable to understand, a good place to figure out your next steps and continue growing.
When asked about the everyday Polish hospitality, she emphasizes that her experiences so far has been entirely positive.
Yet even positive experiences do not always remove deeper concerns.
There’s always this lingering fear that one day you’ll run into someone with radical views.
But where does that fear come from?
We went back to the streets of Warsaw to ask how people think refugee women are portrayed in the Polish media.
To learn more, we turned to one of the people helping shape the media narrative.
(c) Mateusz Skwarczek
Polish journalist Joanna Mosiej-Sitek, who writes for Sestry, an independent media outlet covering the experiences of Ukrainian women living abroad.
Through her work, she has followed how Ukrainian women are portrayed in the media and how these narratives shape public opinion.
And stereotypes can lead to rejection.
A 2025 online survey by the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for War and Disaster Research in Kraków found that 77% of Ukrainian refugee women described their relations with Poles as neutral or positive. At the same time, 44% said they felt that local attitudes toward them had become more negative.
Compared with the first survey wave in 2023, levels of psychological distress have increased despite improvements in language skills and more frequent social contact.
The researchers describe this as a "cumulative crisis" driven by the combined effects of war-related trauma, everyday pressures such as work, childcare and financial concerns, and the constant stream of news from Ukraine.
Moreover, the Polish state is gradually rolling back the emergency support introduced for Ukrainians fleeing the war, tightening access to social benefits and limiting state-funded accommodation in Collective Accommodation Centres to the most vulnerable groups.
To better understand how Ukrainian women are portrayed in the media, we spoke with Inna Bilak, a journalist with the Ukrainian-language editorial team at Slawa TV.
Today, she is based in Warsaw. But when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she was forced to flee to Poland carrying little more than a backpack.
Many members of Slawa TV's editorial team share similar experiences. According to Inna, a large part of the newsroom consists of war migrants, many of them women.
We are women war migrants telling the stories of other women war migrants. Our stories are stories of strength.
Drawing on both her personal experience and her work as a journalist, Inna has closely followed how Ukrainian women are portrayed in the Polish media.
According to her, hostile media coverage can influence the public image of Ukrainian women war migrants in Poland.
However, she also points out that many Polish media outlets actively challenge such narratives by highlighting the stories of women who are rebuilding their lives and striving to start anew in a foreign country.
But not all media outlets tell the same stories in the same way.
We asked Joanna Mosiej-Sitek whether there are differences in how migrant women are portrayed across Poland's independent, public and privately funded media.
But when we asked her where the most significant differences could be found, she pointed us in another direction.
But what path is there for the media to counter these trends?
While Inna emphasizes the importance of facts, representation and challenging misinformation, Joanna Mosiej-Sitek points to another responsibility of the media.
(c) Mateusz Skwarczek
The media need, above all, more responsibility and sensitivity because we are building relationships and a shared future together.
Back at the women's club in Warsaw, the knitting needles continue to move as conversations flow around the table.
Throughout this story, we have heard different perspectives on what it means to be a Ukrainian woman in Poland. We have heard how media narratives can shape public perceptions and how biased media coverage can fuel stereotypes.
Yet, the stories shared by the women themselves often reveal a more complex picture.
Some spoke about uncertainty and the emotional toll of living far from home. Others described building new careers while adapting to life in a new country. Many balanced several of these experiences at once.
As the media helps shape public perceptions, it also helps shape the space in which these women build their lives. The stories that are told – and the ones that are left untold – matter.
Perhaps that is the main takeaway: No single narrative can fully capture the experiences of Ukrainian women in Poland. Their stories are marked by both vulnerability and resilience, loss and opportunity, uncertainty and adaptation.
The role of journalism, then, is to make room for those different realities to coexist.
And around the table at the women's club, those experiences continue to unfold. One conversation at a time.
About us
Solomiia Stanovych - Ukraine
Christoph Bosnjak - Austria
Zoriana Katola - Ukraine
Signe Nielsen - Denmark
Renja Natalia Prechtl - Austria
Sources:
https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army
https://omp.academicon.pl/wa/catalog/view/82/214/437