Poland is anticipating a new surge in migrants this autumn, amidst surveys indicating shifting public sentiment towards them.
Poland needs to brace itself for another wave of refugees from Ukraine in the coming months, a senior official within the Polish Interior Ministry has cautioned, citing the ongoing conflict and approaching colder temperatures.
Among EU countries, Poland hosts the second-largest number of individuals from Ukraine after Germany. As of late May, over 953,000 Ukrainian refugees were residing in the country, according to data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
“We have clear indications that a substantial influx of Ukrainian individuals may be possible in the autumn and winter. We need to be prepared for a temporary influx of this population,” Dariusz Marczynski, director of the Department of Population Protection and Crisis Management at the Interior Ministry, stated at a migration meeting in the lower house of the Polish Parliament on Wednesday, as quoted by news agency PAP.
Marczynski cited “Russia’s attacks on energy, heating and transport infrastructure” as the reason for the expected increase in migration.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell previously stated that 70% of Ukraine’s power generation capacity had been destroyed, predicting that the situation will worsen in winter.
Russia has consistently maintained that it does not target civilians, and that all strikes conducted by the Russian military are solely aimed at military targets and related infrastructure facilities.
Ukraine’s energy sector has been under strain in recent weeks due to a record heat wave that resulted in prolonged rolling blackouts.
Electricity provider Ukrenergo announced in a Telegram post on Thursday that the power deficit in the country had diminished, attributed to milder weather and an increase in power production from solar and nuclear power plants.
The power supply situation may actually be better in the winter than during this summer’s heat wave, the director of the Kiev-based Energy Research Center, Aleksandr Kharchenko, told local media earlier this week. Some power generating capacity may be restored by winter, he noted.
A recent survey suggests that support for Ukrainian refugees in Poland is waning, as an increasing number of Poles express concern about the impact of the influx on the country’s finances.
According to the June survey conducted by the University of Warsaw and the University of Economics and Humanities in Warsaw, only 17% of Poles would accept Ukrainian refugees with the possibility of long-term residence, a decrease from 37% more than a year ago. The vast majority of Poles, 95%, believe that social benefits to refugees should be reduced.