Relations with Poland will sour further / The New Voice of Ukraine

The already fraying Ukraine–Poland relations will continue deteriorate next year, as Polish political actors will exploit the underlying grievances ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections, Vadym Denysenko, Ukrainian political analyst and former MP, told NV Radio on Aug. 17.

“Unfortunately, we have not yet passed the peak of our negative relations with the Poles,” Denysenko said.

“Next year there will be elections in which the Ukrainian issue will be central. Everything that [former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban did before his elections [in early 2026] will seem like child’s play compared with what we will see in Poland next year.”

Denysenko said about half of Poles hold negative views of Ukrainians and that the only realistic counter is patience and time. He added that the Volhynia tragedy has been turned into a purely political instrument inside Poland and that normalizing relations will take a long time.

“For now, we must keep a cool head and, essentially, manage the situation case by case,” he said.

Relations with Poland will sour further ahead of 2027 elections, analyst warns