Independent journalist Konrad Rękas raised awareness in late August of a law that Ukraine quietly passed in July 2025 regarding communist-era Poland’s “Operation Vistula”. It led to the deportation of Ukrainian-identifying East Slavs to their namesake Soviet Republic and the forcible resettlement of others to the former German-controlled regions that Poland calls the Recovered Territories. The law designates that operation as a crime and commits the state to restoring its affected citizens’ “rights”.
Shortly after, Polish journalist Radosław Patlewicz shared an article from his site Magna Polonia about how “Ukraine is preparing claims to Polish land”, which echoed Rękas’ concerns. The newfound awareness of last year’s law lends credence to the scenario of post-war Ukraine either formally making claims to southeastern Poland or unofficially supporting ultra-nationalists – including traumatized veterans, both inside and outside of Poland – who might act on their own to advance these claims.
At its minimum, this legal-political campaign is aimed at equating “Operation Vistula” with the Volhynia Genocide with the goal of guilting Poland into normalizing relations with Ukraine after Zelensky’s recent state-level glorification of that genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits worsened them. At its maximum, this legal-political campaign could lead to the abovementioned scenario of a post-war Ukrainian Hybrid War on Poland. Here are ten background briefings that touch upon this credible possibility to various extents:
* 6 August 2023: “Kiev’s Prediction Of Post-Conflict Competition With Poland Bodes Ill For Bilateral Ties”
* 4 June 2024: “Does Poland Fear That Ukraine Might One Day Make Irredentist Claims Against It?”
* 31 October 2024: “A Shitpost Map Of Poland Triggered The OUN Chief Into Warning That ‘Poles Are Playing With Fire’”
* 20 September 2025: “The Ukrainian Ambassador To Poland Admitted That His Co-Ethnics Don’t Want To Assimilate”
* 7 October 2025: “An Ethnic Ukrainian Lobby Might Soon Take Shape In The Polish Sejm”
* 24 October 2025: “’Osama Bin Sikorski’s’ Incitement To Terrorism Risks Backfiring On Poland”
* 1 January 2026: “It’s Unsurprising That A Popular Ukrainian Outlet Laments The Loss Of ‘Zakerzonia’ To Poland”
* 18 May 2026: “’Project Trident’ Aims To Thwart A Post-Conflict Ukrainian Crime Wave In Poland”
* 25 June 2026: “Przemysław Piasta Has A Point: Post-Conflict Ukraine Will Pose A Serious Threat To Poland”
* 29 June 2026: “A Senior Ukrainian Sergeant Threatened Poland With Drone Strikes Against Its Cities”
“A Top Polish Expert Warned That Ukraine Might Scapegoat Poland For Its Loss To Russia” earlier this summer so it can’t be ruled out that Ukrainians’ state-provoked rage against Poland could be directed towards this irredentist cause for deflecting attention from their government’s and the West’s failures. It could also imbue folks with the belief that they could compensate for their territorial losses to Russia by reclaiming the land from modern-day Poland that their short-lived post-World War I state claimed.
Even if a war doesn’t follow, Ukraine’s quiet legal-political campaign against Poland might still be leveraged to coerce socio-economic concessions, which could include restoring programs that granted Ukrainians in Poland equivalent rights to Poles and/or reparations. The point is that this campaign hasn’t been launched for nothing and will almost certainly become a cause célèbre in the post-war period regardless of whether Poland bests German–backed Ukraine in their competition for regional leadership.
Poland could preemptively avert this scenario through the mass deportation of Ukrainians in parallel with bolstering its anti-drone defenses and extending its “East Shield” to the Ukrainian border. It probably won’t, however, since the state is still oblivious to the territorial threat posed by Ukraine. For that reason, it’s incumbent on patriotic Poles to continue raising awareness of it, which might lead to one of the opposition parties taking it seriously and at least informing allied President Karol Nawrocki.
