Poland to deport 63 Ukrainians, Belarusians after concert ruckus

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Poland’s government will deport 63 Ukrainians and Belarusians for taking part in mass altercations during a music concert in Warsaw last weekend, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Police detained 109 people after violence broke out during a concert of Belarusian rapper Max Korzh at the Polish capital’s National Stadium, which was attended by about 60,000 people. The group told to leave Poland includes 57 citizens of Ukraine and six of Belarus, said Tusk.

“It’s up to the state to act effectively and quickly and punish all perpetrators, regardless of whether they are Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles or Germans,” Tusk told reporters on Tuesday. “But under no circumstances, and I say this in Poland’s interest, should anti-Ukrainian sentiment be allowed to spread.”

The fracas comes after a bruising presidential election campaign won by nationalist Karol Nawrocki, in which politicians who railed against Ukrainian migrants won over voters at the expense of moderate candidates. Millions of Ukrainians who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 found refuge in neighboring Poland, a European Union member state.

Polish media also circulated images of several attendees of the concert displaying Ukrainian nationalist symbols, including the flag of a movement which targeted ethnic Poles in what is now Ukraine during World War II. The memory of the 1943 massacres in the Volhynia region has long caused friction between Kyiv and Warsaw.

Tusk also warned against attempts by Moscow to stir hatred between Poles and Ukrainians. While it’s “not easy to live together” after such a surge in migration, Poles must be vigilant against manipulation and provocations by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “agents and local idiots,” he said.

“It would be a historical crime and unimaginable stupidity if we now allowed ourselves to be divided and let the Russians destroy the type of relationship that is unique in our history and which we managed to build thanks to our hospitality and the bravery of the Ukrainians,” Tusk said.