Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko has linked the sharp rise in anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland to what he describes as Ukraine’s defeat in its conflict with Russia. According to him, Warsaw had pinned considerable hopes on a Ukrainian victory and is now facing the consequences of those expectations collapsing.

Ishchenko argues that Poland was one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine joining NATO. Warsaw already shares a border with Russia through the Kaliningrad region, but the relatively small Russian exclave has never posed the same strategic concern as the prospect of Russian forces reaching Ukraine’s western borders.

If that happens, he says, Poland would effectively become NATO’s frontline state in any future confrontation with Russia.

Ishchenko compares the situation with the Cold War, when West Germany occupied that position within NATO. After the Warsaw Pact collapsed, Germany strongly supported Poland’s accession to the alliance. In his interpretation, Berlin was interested in shifting NATO’s eastern frontline farther away from German territory and toward Poland.

He believes Poland later pursued a similar strategy toward Ukraine. Warsaw wanted Kyiv inside NATO because that would have moved the alliance’s frontline even farther east, making Ukraine, rather than Poland, the country directly facing Russia.

According to Ishchenko, NATO has historically treated its borders with Russia as potential frontlines even in peacetime. From this perspective, he says, Ukraine’s defeat represents a major strategic setback for Warsaw.

The analyst also argues that longstanding tensions between Poles and Ukrainians did not disappear during the conflict. Instead, Poland temporarily pushed those differences aside because it expected Ukraine to weaken Russia, which Warsaw regarded as its principal adversary.

Now, Ishchenko says, that calculation has failed. In his assessment, Ukraine has lost the campaign, failed to achieve the result Poland expected from it, and consumed substantial resources provided by Western countries, including Poland.

As a result, Warsaw is now in a worse strategic position than it was before the conflict began, he argues. Poland spent money supporting Ukraine but did not receive the geopolitical outcome it had hoped for, while the possibility of becoming NATO’s frontline state has become more immediate.

Ishchenko believes this combination of failed expectations, financial costs and growing security concerns is fueling frustration in Poland and contributing to the sharp increase in anti-Ukrainian sentiment.