• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemns rising violence against Ukrainians in Poland following a brutal attack on a couple from Ukraine.
• Video footage shows three men beating up a young Ukrainian woman and her partner in Wroclaw, with the attack driven by a "nationalist motive" according to police.
• Resentment towards Ukrainians in Poland is growing, with 180 cases of hate crimes reported in the first half of this year alone, a third more than in the same period last year.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has criticized the rising levels of violence against Ukrainians in his country following a brutal attack on a couple from Ukraine.

Speaking in Warsaw on Tuesday, Tusk said that at the start of Russia's war of aggression, the world had been impressed by the solidarity shown by Poles towards war refugees from their neighbouring country.

"All of this is being destroyed right now if we allow thugs, hooligans and common criminals to beat and humiliate people simply because they have a slightly different accent."

Tusk was referring to an incident that took place on Sunday in Wrocław.

Video footage circulated on social media shows three men beating up a young Ukrainian woman and her partner. The three men kicked the Ukrainian man while he was already lying on the ground; the woman was struck on the head with a knuckle duster and suffered injuries to her ear.

The police arrested two suspects - both of whom have previous convictions for similar offences. A police spokeswoman said the attack had been driven by a "nationalist motive".

On Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X that the government expected an impartial and objective investigation. He called on "certain Polish politicians" not to further stoke hostilities. This was an allusion to Poland's head of state, Karol Nawrocki.

Nawrocki had recently stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland's highest honour amid a historical dispute. This had fuelled anti-Ukrainian sentiment, particularly among the far right.

Now Prime Minister Tusk has also appealed to Nawrocki, urging him to no longer remain silent on the violence against Ukrainians.

Even before 2022, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were living and working in Poland.

Following the Russian invasion, Poland welcomed refugees with open arms and helped them integrate. The number of Ukrainian citizens in Poland currently stands at 1.5 million.

However, more than four years after the start of the war, resentment is growing in Poland.

The newspaper Rzeczpospolita recently reported, citing the latest statistics from police headquarters, there had been 180 cases of hate crimes against Ukrainians in the first half of this year alone.

This was a third more than in the same period last year.