The Radom Incident (May 13-27, 2026)

In the publications, roles were clearly differentiated: the victim was referred to exclusively in neutral and legal terms such as “young Ukrainian,” “Ukrainian citizen,” or “injured party.” The perpetrators, in contrast, were identified through age descriptors (“38-year-old,” “22-year-old resident of Radom’s outskirts”) as well as terms such as “aggressors” and “attackers.” Neither side was given space to justify their actions, although the press did present the defendants’ line of defense in detail.

A distinctive feature of this case is the full consensus between law enforcement and the media: official representatives, including the head of the Radom-East Prosecutor’s Office, Cezary Ołtaszewski, immediately and clearly stated the ethnic basis of the crime. The attackers face up to 15 years in prison.

The case highlights the deep linguistic barriers faced by migrants. The very fact that a “foreign accent” became a trigger for violence makes the migrant community fear using their native or imperfect Polish in public spaces. Additionally, the court’s decision to place one of the perpetrators under standard police supervision due to his cooperation with the investigation may be perceived by victims as insufficient, as allowing the offender back onto the streets of a medium-sized city fuels fears of retaliation and discourages other victims from reporting crimes.

Despite these challenges, the unanimous condemnation of xenophobia in Polish media demonstrates that, notwithstanding isolated radical incidents, Poland’s social and legal systems show zero tolerance for crimes motivated by ethnic or national hatred and are ready to firmly protect minority rights.

How Ukrainian media covered the attack in Radom

The overall nature of Ukrainian media coverage of the attack on a young Ukrainian man in Radom was typical for similar incidents — reactive, somewhat delayed, and based on limited detail. The sample included 12 articles, all of which relied exclusively on information from two Polish media outlets — RMF24 і TVN24. Information from RMF24 was used by major commercial TV channels (Channel 24, TSN), while TVN24 was cited by outlets on the “white list” of high-quality media by the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information, as well as analytical publications (Hromadske, ZN.ua, Zmina). Regional portals (Volyn 24, Halytskyi korespondent) further down the distribution chain, republishing content already taken from Ukrainian media (TSN, Slovo i Dilo), without any new information, additional details, or added value. As a result, the informational picture of the event was effectively based solely on comments from the Polish prosecutor’s office, transmitted through Polish media.

The main semantic core of all headlines became the detail “could not sing a Polish song” — an image that simultaneously conveys the absurdity and brutality of the incident, while also enhancing its virality. This is a rare case in which all media outlets, from tabloid to quality press, focus on the same detail. Tonal differences between outlets are primarily visible in the presence or absence of the word “brutally” alongside the verb “beat” in headlines (Channel 24, TSN — yes; Hromadske, ZN, Zmina — no). Only ZN explicitly states in the headline that the attackers were “Poles”; the remaining outlets either avoid identifying the nationality of the perpetrators or mention it only in the body of the text.

Only four out of twelve outlets (Channel 24, TSN, Slovo i Dilo, Zmina) added at least minimal context — mainly in the form of a “reminder” section. For example, TSN links the Radom attack to the case of Ukrainian teenagers beaten on 7 May in Warsaw on the Świętokrzyski Bridge, presenting a series of incidents in May. None of the media outlets independently classified the attack journalistically as a hate crime — in all materials, it is presented exclusively as a quote from the Polish prosecutor’s office, without editorial assessment.

All materials rely on official Polish sources — mainly prosecutors’ spokesperson Aneta Godź and Cezary Ołtaszewski, head of the Radom prosecutor’s office. However, none of the 12 publications include comments from the Ukrainian consulate, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or any other official Ukrainian institution. In contrast to the reaction to the Świętokrzyski Bridge attack on 7 May, there is no recorded official response from the Embassy of Ukraine in Poland in this case, including on its Facebook page. The Ukrainian media we analyzed also did not seek comments on the Radom attack and did not present the position of Ukrainian diplomats, limiting themselves to statements from Polish officials. This contrasts with other cases where diaspora media and some quality outlets cited the Ukrainian ambassador and provided practical guidance. The absence of human rights organizations’ commentary is particularly notable in outlets with the relevant profile, including Zmina.

Overall, the coverage is characterized by informational scarcity: the audience receives basic facts and an official Polish response, but is deprived of broader context as well as the voices of the victims.