An attack on a teenager in Olsztyn and incidents in Głogów

(April 29 - May 12, 2026)

How Ukrainian media covered the incident in Olsztyn

Coverage of the attack in Olsztyn revealed a structural pattern that we had already identified in previous monitoring cases: the majority of Ukrainian media reports were reactive and relied on a single Polish source — the Ukrainian-language version of the inPoland portal and the inPoland Telegram channel. This outlet became the primary source for 9 out of 13 analyzed publications (NTA, UNN, TSN, RBC, Zaxid.net, Volynnews, Korrespondent, Ukranews, NV), creating an informational “bottleneck” effect: one cited source effectively shaped the wording, sequence of facts, and set of quotations that entered the Ukrainian media space.

The coverage of the attack on the Ukrainian teenager itself split into two narrative lines. The first may be described as “diplomatic and human-rights-oriented.” It appeared in reports by Slawa.TV (part of the Polish national broadcaster TVP and funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Nasz Vybir (a diaspora outlet for Ukrainians in Poland), Glavcom (a nationwide online outlet), Zmina (a specialized human rights media outlet), Zaxid.net (a regional Lviv-based publication), and NV (a nationwide liberal media outlet).

These outlets went beyond simply repeating information from inPoland and turned to primary sources: the lawyer handling the case, Dawid Denert (including his post on X), and a Facebook post by the Consulate General of Ukraine in Gdańsk. The reports were framed around the legal qualification of a “hate crime,” including quotations about a possible xenophobic motive, calls for a serious investigation, and documentation of diplomatic actions — including official letters sent to Polish authorities, as stated by the Ukrainian Consulate General on Facebook.

The second narrative line consisted of “retelling” information about the incident without clear interpretations — represented by NTA (the website of a regional Lviv TV channel), UNN (a tabloid), RBC-Ukraine (a nationwide business outlet), TSN (the news portal of the 1+1 TV channel), Volynnews (a regional Volyn outlet), Korrespondent (a nationwide media outlet, formerly a print magazine), and Ukranews (a tabloid). These publications focused mainly on recounting facts from social media with strong modal caution (“allegedly,” “it is claimed,” “according to witnesses”). Most of them quoted Olsztyn police spokesperson Jacek Wilczewski (who commented in response to an inquiry from inPoland), while references to the classification of the incident as a hate crime were largely absent — instead, the phrase “due to national origin” was used.

The language of the headlines ranges from neutral (UNN: “possible beating or violation of personal integrity”) to expressive tabloid-style framing (TSN: “Ukrainian children brutally abused”; Korrespondent: “Ukrainian children abused”). The victim is mostly described as a “child,” “teenager,” or “brother,” while the attackers are generalized as “a group of adults,” “men aged 20–30 known to them,” or simply “adults” (as in Zmina and Glavcom.ua), without ethnic labels such as “Poles” appearing in headlines. Some outlets included or highlighted an alleged quote from the attackers — “We will kill you and take you to Ukraine in a trunk” (Slawa.TV, Volynnews) — while others mentioned these words only in the main text as indirect speech recounting verbal threats.

The contextualization of the incident differs significantly across Ukrainian media. Glavcom provides the most comprehensive systemic context by citing statistics on the rise of hate crimes in Poland and referring to the April 26 attack in Wrocław, where a Ukrainian man suffered 14 stab wounds. Other outlets — Zmina, Korrespondent, Volynnews, TSN, and UNN — mention one or two comparable attacks on Ukrainians in Poland from recent months or the previous year (including incidents in Radom, Poznań, Warsaw, and Przasnysz). By contrast, Nasz Vybir, NTA, and Ukranews provide no such comparisons and do not frame the Olsztyn incident as part of a broader trend.

Particular attention should be paid to the statement by the victim’s mother claiming that the Polish police initially allegedly refused to accept the report. This claim was repeated by TSN, Volynnews, and Korrespondent, either with only a general reference to the woman’s TikTok account without citing a specific video, or without clarifying that the outlet itself had contacted the victim’s mother. The original source (InPoland) also did not contain the mother’s account in indirect speech. Without verification and without confirmation or denial from the Polish police, this creates a potentially problematic narrative of “inaction by the Polish police,” which risks reinforcing distrust toward Polish institutions.

Overall, the Ukrainian media space reacted strongly to the Olsztyn incident, but in a non-uniform way. The quality of coverage directly correlated with the willingness of editorial teams to go beyond reproducing a single source, to independently seek comments from stakeholders — that is, to perform actual journalistic work — and to place the incident within the broader context of hate crimes against Ukrainians in Poland.

As part of our monitoring, we also documented two consecutive incidents in Głogów (Lower Silesian Voivodeship) that became examples of aggression motivated by national hostility. Both attacks occurred within a short period of time and shared several characteristics: their public nature, the involvement of young perpetrators, and a clearly xenophobic context.

• On April 28, 2026, on Maria Skłodowska-Curie Street, 17-year-old Tymoteusz B., together with three accomplices, attacked a 25-year-old Ukrainian man and his 18-year-old girlfriend. The male victim was severely beaten, while the girl was insulted, pushed, and forced to record offensive statements about herself on a phone. All attackers were identified: two were detained and charged with assault and xenophobic abuse. Prosecutors classified the attackers’ actions as bearing signs of torture and humiliation of human dignity.
• On May 1, 2026, another attack targeted a 28-year-old Ukrainian man at the festival grounds by the Oder River. A group of four individuals (three men and one woman) assaulted the Ukrainian citizen while he was spending time in a public place. The attackers beat the man across his body while accompanying the assault with nationalist insults. Police detained all four participants; three adults were charged under Article 257 of the Polish Criminal Code (assault and insult based on national affiliation), while the case of the fourth participant, a minor, was transferred to the family court.

An analysis of the coverage of these events in Polish regional media (myGlogow.pl, miedziowe.pl, tuWrocław) revealed a strategy of “forced balance.” In the second case, journalists focused on debunking rumors about the victim’s death, adopting a tactic aimed at rationally calming the local community. In contrast, editorial decisions in the first case were more ambiguous. The regional portal myGlogow.pl employed emotional framing by using the headline question “Jealousy or hatred?”, effectively encouraging the audience to search for “mitigating” personal circumstances behind a serious crime. Giving a platform to the attacker’s relatives, who justified the assault as “defending honor,” created a dangerous manipulative frame in which xenophobia becomes normalized through the lens of personal drama.

In contrast, the outlet miedziowe.pl focused on the systemic nature of the problem and new prosecutorial guidelines aimed at combating hate crimes. This polarization in coverage demonstrates that the Polish media space is still searching for an adequate language to describe xenophobia, often leaning toward explaining such crimes through the marginalization or immaturity of the perpetrators.

Despite the brutality of the attacks and the legal recognition of their xenophobic nature, these stories did not appear in major Ukrainian media outlets or television channels. Information about the incidents in Głogów circulated exclusively through Ukrainian-language diaspora news pages about Wrocław on Instagram and closed social media groups.

This situation creates the effect of an “information bubble”: the Ukrainian community in Poland experiences growing anxiety while receiving news through local online communities, whereas the broader Ukrainian public remains largely unaware of these challenges. This highlights the gap between the real-life experiences of migrants and the agenda of Ukrainian media.