Polish border guards refute Russian fake news about new wave of refugees from Ukraine
Pravda Ukraine
Polish border guards had to refute disinformation spread by pro-Kremlin accounts about a new wave of refugees from Ukraine.
Source: European Pravda; PAP, a Polish national news agency
Details: Pro-Kremlin accounts reported that a new wave of refugees from Ukraine is storming the Polish-Ukrainian border. The publication’s authors are trying to scare people by saying that up to 150,000 people arrive in Poland from Ukraine every day, twice as many as usual. This increase in border traffic is allegedly due to Ukrainians’ concern about lowering the mobilisation age.
Currently, men over 25 can be recruited for war, and in 2025, the age limit may be lowered to 18. Propaganda messages state that mothers, fearing these changes, are taking their underage sons out of Ukraine en masse, causing queues at the border.
However, the Polish Border Guard Service does not confirm either the figures or the phenomenon itself.
Captain Dariusz Sienicki, spokesperson for the Bug Border Guard Regional Unit, reports that over the past week, border guards have indeed noted an increase in border traffic on the Polish-Ukrainian border, but this applies to both directions, both to and from Poland.
Quote from Dariusz Sienicki: “The increase in traffic is usually associated with the Christmas and New Year period, as it is every year.”
More details: Longer queues at the border with Ukraine began to form on 20 December, but traffic was evenly distributed in both directions, with a predominance of people leaving Poland.
In addition, the number of 150,000 Ukrainian citizens seeking to enter Poland was not recorded at the border on any given day. At its peak on 22 December, almost 89,000 Ukrainian citizens crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border, but most of them, almost 49,000, left Poland.
The story of a new wave of refugees on the Polish border is not confirmed by NGOs that provide assistance to them. If the reports that mothers were fleeing Ukraine en masse with their sons on the eve of mobilisation were true, many more would have started to apply to these institutions for legal aid before Christmas, which did not happen.
Łukasz Adamski, Deputy Director of the Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue, says reports of mass emigration of Ukrainians are deliberate disinformation. This disinformation is derived from the Kremlin’s propaganda activities and serves to incite anti-Ukrainian prejudice among Poles.
Background:
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that he sees no point in the reduction of the conscription age, as the key problem is the lack of weapons and the slow pace of training new brigades.
- In recent weeks, the United States has been making public and private calls for Ukraine to reduce the conscription age to 18, arguing that the shortage of personnel on the battlefield is becoming critical and that this is why Russia is able to make advances in the east.
- Arguments over mobilisation rates and age in Ukraine caused tension between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Joe Biden.
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