Non-governmental assistance to Ukrainian refugees by Polish society in the aftermath of the escalation of hostilities in 2022

Abstract

The full-scale war in Ukraine caused the largest refugee crisis in Europe after World War II. Poland was the initial destination for people fleeing the war, causing a rapid influx of several million refugees in just a few weeks. An unprecedented and rapid response of the Polish society in terms of providing assistance to refugees enabled the acceptance of those who decided to stay in Poland Social action that began at the local level and translated into commonly known non-governmental assistance provided the basis and impetus for fostering beneficial connections between Poland and Ukraine, not only on the state level, but especially within the respective populations. The purpose of the article was to explore the forms of assistance offered by the Polish society, the scope of aspects of the refugees’ lives it addressed, and how this was reflected in the mutual perception of Poles and Ukrainians. As a hypothesis, it was assumed that a direct involvement of the Polish society in helping refugees from Ukraine decreased over the course of a year of the full-blown war in Ukraine, with simultaneous high social support for the state’s systemic solutions in this regard. In order to verify the hypothesis, a combination of descriptive, analysis of existing data, comparative and statistical methods were employed.