this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
72 points (98.6% liked)

Europe

5865 readers
1072 users here now

News and information from Europe πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to any of the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.

founded 10 months ago
MODERATORS
 

Research suggests that Poland's public opinion of Ukrainians is indeed worsening. According to a March 2025 poll by the respected CBOS Centre, just 50% of Poles are in favour of accepting Ukrainian refugees, a fall of seven percentage points in four months. Two years ago, the figure was 81%.

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] yoriaiko@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 40 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

Prez elections very soon, pro-moscow [redacted[ activist and spies doing their job, for both social opinion and very probably survey too. And I mean all [redacted] moscow [redacted] - these sitting in moscow, are all active across internet spreading misinformation and are paid there as rus employees; and these that sits in polish gov for years and are paid as rus employees.

Aside to them, it is various of how society sees migrants, little for good little for bad. It is true that it may be harder to buy something at grocery store from ukrainian employee that often lack language details, then also true many made good friends thru migrant neighbours next home or work spots. Some bad and some good happens, then I believe overall most society do accept newcomers.

imHo the change (both survey and social irl) is based on [redacted] influence from outside.

[–] randomname@scribe.disroot.org 31 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Ukraine has become a hot-button political issue in Poland's crucial presidential election campaign.

Far-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, currently polling third, is virulently anti-Ukrainian and supports an "agreement" with Russia's Vladimir Putin ...

Michal Marek, who runs an NGO that monitors disinformation and propaganda in Poland, offers some examples of the anti-Ukraine material being circulated on social media. "The main narratives are that Ukrainians are stealing money from the Polish budget, that Ukrainians do not respect us, that they want to rob and kill us and are responsible for the war," he says.

"This information starts in Russian-speaking Telegram channels, and, after that, we see the same photos and the same text just translated by Google Translate. And they are pushing [the material] into the Polish infosphere."

Mr Marek links such disinformation directly with the increase in anti-Ukraine sentiment in Poland, and says an increasing number of Poles are becoming influenced by propaganda.

"But we will only see the effect after the election - what percentage of Poles want to vote for openly pro-Russian candidates."

Seems to be the same Russian disinformation campaign that we see elsewhere (and we have been observing since Feb 2022). Unfortunately, there is an audience and 'spreaders', also here on Lemmy.

As an addition:

Poland finds what it says may be foreign-funded election interference

Poland said on Wednesday it had uncovered what could be an attempt to interfere in its presidential election campaign [Poles vote in election first round on May 18] using advertisements on Facebook that may have been financed from abroad, an assertion the social media platform disputed.

European governments have been on high alert for signs of electoral interference since Romania cancelled an ongoing presidential election in December due to allegations of Russian interference ...

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 6 points 2 hours ago

Even then there are not going to be less regugees if russia takes territory. Best way to get the ukrainian people home is to get russia back behind its own borders.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 10 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Far-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, currently polling third, is virulently anti-Ukrainian and supports an "agreement" with Russia's Vladimir Putin ...

The Polish state should really be doing its utmost worst if a Russia sympathiser can poll third. Have they forgotten how many Poles died at the hands of the Soviets?

[–] yoriaiko@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 22 minutes ago

As always, it is a bit more complicated.

backstory - we talk about 3 political parties here: pis, mid-right extremist, ruled 2015-2023 + prez 2015-2025 (hope so); PO, renamed to KO recently and others, ruled ~2009?-2014 and trying 2023-now, but prez can and do block their works a lot; and konfa, under many names, includes mentioned slawomir meme-tzen, never rules, never proved they are the bads.

Both mid-right extremists (pis) and far-right extremist (konf) build their voters on fact that Poland is a bit poor. While actual centre party (ko) had their rules thru few hard world-wide economic crisis, making lives a bit harder, then they also failed to correctly announce their victories, so noone noticed these.

If "economist failures" were bad, let's turn someone else - left extremists who talk lgbt only (that is secondary to economy or whole non important factor)? or right extremists who promises moneys? Yeah, promises. Very same awesome moneys as whole world sees effects of usa and tariffs right now.

The hate to [redacted] rus? who cares! we hate germs (as Germany) even more, and their european union that takes our independence away, hurr durr! (/s). Right politics mesmerized society to think they are working for sake of independent, solo, and strong Poland, totally not for sake of [redacted] putin.

[–] einkorn@feddit.org 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Rookies! Our (Germany) bootlickers poll second or first, depending on which surveyor you ask.

[–] Melchior@feddit.org 1 points 19 minutes ago

This is for a presidential election with a two round system. So he basically has no chance winning it. However his party is at 17% in polling for the Sejm.

[–] Lawnman23@lemmy.world 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Hey Poland, how about you be anti-Russian instead?

You know, the country that killed over 6 million of your citizens during the last world war after they annexed your country…

[–] nevm@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It’s the 4th generation memory wipe effect. Once the current grandparents have no direct experience of the thing, forget about the thing.

[–] Melchior@feddit.org 1 points 33 minutes ago

That would be true for Nazi Germany invading Poland, but Poland was a Soviet puppet until 1989, so well within current memory.