Polish police have detained a Ukrainian accused of threatening arson attacks and launched deportation proceedings.
The 29-year-old Ukrainian man’s detention, announced on August 29, came after the man had criticised Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to veto a law extending support for Ukrainian refugees in Poland, authorities said.
“The man had [allegedly] been posting video materials on social media in which he threatened arson,” according to the police. They added that he would now be charged with alleged public incitement to commit a crime, an offence that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, and that a deportation order would be processed.
The Ukrainian had allegedly posted and later taken down a TikTok video in which he slammed the President’s decision.
“If there won’t be child benefits, homes will be burned,” said the post, showing images of fire engines on what appears to be a housing estate in Poland. “Look what our people are doing. They set fire to a house … You don’t know yet what Ukrainians are capable of.”
The post was apparently referring to the decision by the opposition Conservatives (PiS)-allied President to veto a government supported bill to extend support for Ukrainian refugees and to present alternative legislation making benefits conditional on Ukrainians working and paying taxes in Poland.
The centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has recently announced the deportation of dozens of Ukrainians and Belarusians after riots at a recent concert in Warsaw. It has also claimed that in some cases such actions by migrants were inspired or even commissioned by Russia.
Poland’s Border Guard authority has reported that more than 1,100 foreigners have been deported from Poland in 2025. That included 15 Ukrainians expelled on August 29 for repeated offences such as robberies, drunken driving and organising illegal border crossings.
Feelings have been running high over Nawrocki’s veto, with Vitalyi Mazurenko, a Ukrainian journalist who holds Polish citizenship, on August 27 attacking the President on commercial broadcaster Polsat News.
“The rhetoric and behaviour of Mr Nawrocki are not presidential behaviour, but the behaviour of a ‘pachan’. That’s what the leader of a criminal group is called in Russian prisons,” Mazurenko said and would not back down from his comment despite protests from the show’s host.
Mazurenko, who has been fired from his job at the Ukrainian International Observer after his remarks, initially apologised for his comments but then retracted that in an interview with Liberal German-owned portal Onet.
In that, he claimed he had only expressed remorse to protect his family from online hate and aggression.
Insulting the head of state in Poland is a crime carrying a possible prison term of three months to five years.
