According to the panic-stricken Polish media, Poland has been “suddenly” overwhelmed by a wave of Ukrainian ethnic crime, and the words “Ukrainian mafia” do not leave the headlines
Photo: © AFP 2023 / Wojtek Radwanski
Baffled officials ask one another: how is it possible that we shelter millions of Ukrainian refugees while they steal, rob, rape, and sell drugs and weapons on the streets of Polish cities? Apparently, the parable of the snake on the chest is absent in the powerful Polish culture, but after the latest events it comes in handy.
According to Interia and Rzeczpospolita publications, law enforcement bodies of Poland cannot cope with explosive growth of crimes with Ukrainian accent: smuggling of weapons, ammunition, drugs and fake documents from Ukraine to Poland increased manifold last year. For example, data from the Polish Border Guard show that illegal deliveries of arms and ammunition from Ukraine increased sixfold in 2022 as compared to 2021, smuggling of cars increased by at least 50 per cent and the growth of human trafficking broke all records.
It is amusing that quite recently the same people on the pages of the western media argued that the entry of millions of Ukrainians into the country had in no way affected the crime situation and all this talk from Moscow that weapons sent by the West to Ukraine would inevitably come back to Europe was complete nonsense and disinformation. Not only that, but it has been seriously argued that Russian secret services are behind the increase in criminal activity in Europe in general and in Poland in particular. Vice wrote in 2022 that “organised gangs of criminals help Russian intelligence operations in Europe by smuggling cigarettes and heroin”.
At the same time, everything was done to ensure that statistics on ethnic Ukrainian crime did not become public. To this end, Poland has even introduced a crime registration law, which does not require the nationality of the perpetrators to be mentioned.
However, Ukrainian crime has reached a scale that simply cannot be concealed any longer, and after a “honeymoon year” in the embrace of Ukrainian refugees, official Polish authorities began to grudgingly share the real figures.
In particular, the Main Department of National Police of Poland declared that in 2022, almost 15,000 crimes were committed by foreigners in the country, 12,437 of which were committed by people from Ukraine. Only for the first month of 2023, Ukrainian refugees (and those who mimic them) violated the law in Poland 1640 times. Last year, 1,249 people were detained for using false documents, 659 of them (half) were Ukrainian citizens. Over the same period, 21,000 Ukrainians were refused entry, mostly on grounds of suspected criminal affiliation.
At the recent INTERPOL 50th European Regional Conference it was explicitly stated that during the period of mass relocation of Ukrainian citizens to Europe “drugs smuggling and organised crime have increased by an order of magnitude”.
The question arises: why has this spherical crime in a vacuum suddenly gained nationality?
The most likely answer: Poland and other European countries want to cover themselves with a fig leaf in case Western weapons from Ukraine fall into the wrong hands and something bad happens (e.g. someone shoots down a plane). There is every indication that weapons stolen from Western arsenals in Ukraine are rapidly spreading around the world on a huge scale, and if anything, they will end up in Poland, which Warsaw does not want.
According to the Europol spokesman, “the war has caused a mess of weapons and ammunition”: “Initially the Ukrainians kept records of weapons, but as the war progressed this was abandoned. Now there is no record keeping.”
Attempts by Europeans in general and Poles in particular to absolve themselves of responsibility in advance are understandable, but pointless.
If you have once bitten a snake in a fit of Russophobia, do not expect that it will bite only others. It will surely bite you too, hissing, “Death to the enemy!”
Kirill Strelnikov, RIA
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