Did Ukrainian refugees beat Polish citizens in Warsaw, Poland, on August 24, 2023, the Independence Day of Ukraine, due to Poles refusing to shout "Slava Ukraini"? No, that's not true: According to Warsaw Police the attackers were identified as Georgians, and no Ukrainian citizens were involved in the incident.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) published by @russia9503 on August 28, 2023.
The Bulgarian title above the photo translated by Lead Stories staff reads:
Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw beat Poles because they refused to shout "Slava Ukraini" (video).
The text in Bulgarian under the photo reads:
Ukrainian refugees beat up Poles in Warsaw because they refused to shout Ukrainian slogans, foreign agencies reported.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 30 05:59:53 2023 UTC)
The content shared in the TikTok video was copied from an article published by a Bulgarian online media. The source of the information can be traced back through the name of the media which is visible above the picture shown in the video. The article in question was published on August 27, 2023, as news reported a conflict between Ukrainians and Poles in the capital of Poland. According to the publication, the initiators of the conflict were Ukrainians.
Information with identical content has been shared by several other Bulgarian online media that used the same source of information, which is a post on a Russian war correspondent Telegram channel called "Operation Z." In the Russian Telegram post, as well as in publications in some Russian media covering the news, it is claimed that Ukrainian refugees beat up Poles in Warsaw "for refusing to shout Nazi slogans."
The photo used in the TikTok video to illustrate the claim does not show the incident of 24 August 2023 and can be traced back to 2013 and the protests in Ukraine. The same image was also used by the few Bulgarian media that covered the news as an attack by Ukrainian refugees on Polish citizens.
However, Polish media publications from 26 August 2023 reported that the 13 men who attacked the eight Poles on the night of 24/25 August were not Ukrainian refugees. According to the official authorities, there were no identified Ukrainians among the arrested persons. The attackers have been identified as Georgians. This was confirmed by a statement from the Warsaw Police in a Twitter post dated August 26, 2023,
Polish Deputy Minister Stanisław Żaryn (Deputy Special Services Coordinator) warns that the circulating information that the attackers were Ukrainians is misinformation. In a Twitter post dated August 26, 2023, he says that the police have identified the attackers from the video as Georgians.
In addition, Żaryn defines the case as a provocation aimed at creating and fueling anti-Ukrainian sentiments in the country, saying:
The case is being used to destabilize the internal situation in Poland and incite Poles. This method of operation corresponds to Russia's operations against Poland.
Żaryn's tweet with this statement can be seen here.
