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Why does Poland give away so much monetary aid to Ukraine even though it took two thirds of the Ukrainian refugees?

Do they have a budget surplus?

Is the Polish popular opinion pressing the government?

Is there any other reason?

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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user366312
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    Why would them taking refugees make them give less or no aid? Wouldn't helping Ukraine end the situation give reason for all those refugees to go home? – Joe W Sep 05 '22 at 13:46
  • @JoeW, Poland is not a churth or a charitable NGO. A political entity always have a political purpose behind any decision they take. – user366312 Sep 05 '22 at 14:12
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    I know they are not a church or a charitable NGO but what does that have to do with my question? Just because they are taking in refugees doesn't mean they have to stop giving aid. Also there is the fact that if the trouble in Ukraine is solved and peace is restored all the refugees will be able to go home and leave Poland which I think is easy to say is something they want to happen. – Joe W Sep 05 '22 at 14:16
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    We know that Poland sees Russia as a military threat and would like Ukraine to prevail in the current conflict. – Dave Gremlin Sep 05 '22 at 14:18
  • @JoeW, Just because they are taking in refugees doesn't mean they have to stop giving aid. --- Unless you have 14% inflation at home. – user366312 Sep 05 '22 at 14:28
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    You might be correct with that but that doesn't mean that Poland is going to just do nothing. The fact remains that the refugees are not reason alone to stop or reduce the amount of aid they are giving to Ukraine. Having 14% inflation at home is a distinct reason to not give aid and it is not related to refugees. – Joe W Sep 05 '22 at 14:29
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    None of that has anything to do with Poland taking in the refugees. – Joe W Sep 05 '22 at 14:30
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    The refugee figures are a bit dated (March). I suspect they moved around a bit in the meantime. TBH it's hard to get a good number. According to wikipedia, like 1M of them crossed into Germany in the meantime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_refugee_crisis#Number_of_refugees – the gods from engineering Sep 05 '22 at 15:10
  • @JoeW Taking refugees is also a form of aid. I believe the question is: they provided a lot of aid X, so why did they also provide a lot of aid Y instead of considering X to fulfill their aid obligations? – Reasonably Against Genocide Sep 06 '22 at 15:03
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    @user253751 Did I ever indicate that it wasn't? My question was and still is what does them taking in refugees have to do with them giving other forms of aid? The two are not linked to each other and there is no reason why it should be expected that they would cut off or reduce other aid because of the refugees. – Joe W Sep 06 '22 at 15:36
  • @JoeW for example, they might have allocated a certain amount of money to Ukraine aid, and then spent it all on refugee housing. – Reasonably Against Genocide Sep 06 '22 at 15:37
  • @user253751 That would be a great reason for them reducing aid but that isn't what happened and the question is asking why they didn't reduce the aid that they gave. Just because they took in a lot of refugees doesn't mean they have to or should reduce the aid that they are giving in other areas. – Joe W Sep 06 '22 at 15:42
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    @user366312 Your question (and comments) seem to make some implicit assumptions, as you insinuate relations between facts that are not clear to me and other users here. Can you explicitly state why you think Poland should give less monetary aid to Ukraine if they are taking many refugees from Ukraine? And can you explicitly state what the Polish inflation rate has to do with this? –  Sep 06 '22 at 19:43

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Poland is on the front lines by bordering Belarus which made itself available as a staging area for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is an existential threat to Poland.

Ukrainian refugees in Poland (about 2 million refugees in a country with a pre-war population of about 38 million people according to the question, although this is a moving target), if anything, provide the Poles with a daily reminder of that the threat of Russian military action that once would have been unthinkable in light of treaties in place, etc. is very real.

But ultimately, there is very little direct connection between receiving refugees from Ukraine and providing economic support to Ukraine. One doesn't impact the ability to do the other, or vice versa. Accepting a refugee isn't necessary particularly draining on the government budget - not free, but not necessarily particularly expensive either and possibly a net gain for Poland economically in the medium to long run. The question's implied premise that refugees are such a drain on Poland's government funds that this seriously squeezes its ability to afford to provide financial aid to Ukraine is flawed.

In the short run, Poland is spending 1% of its GDP ($5.3 billion USD equivalent) on aid to Ukrainian refugees, which is significantly smaller than its defense budget (2.2% of GDP in 2022, 3% in 2023 and with a longer term target of 5%-6% of GDP in light of the heightened threat from Russia which is a sudden unexpected crisis.) As the question notes, Poland's foreign aid to Ukraine is 0.49% of Poland's GDP and if the war in Ukraine isn't too long, that expenditure may not last too long.

In 2022, Poland had an annual budget deficit of 1.9% of GDP, but deficit spending is normal in a national emergency or crisis. Essentially, its refugee spending and foreign aid and ramped up defense spending are being financed with government debt. Poland's annual deficits as a percentage of GDP each year for the last 25 years (according to Bloomberg) is shown below:

Graph of Poland's historic deficits. Most recently -1.9% (2021), -6.9% (2020) and -0.7% (2019)

But, Poland's government finance situation is actually pretty fiscally sound by historic, post-Cold War standards, at the moment.

Every Russian tank and artillery battery destroyed, and every Russian general killed, by a Ukrainian soldier with resources that Polish funds make possible is one that a Polish soldier doesn't have to shed blood to destroy or kill if Russia attacks it. This is because Russia doesn't have a sufficient industrial base to replace its military losses promptly and countries like China that are willing to buy its oil aren't willing to sell Russia more advanced weapons.

And, the more Russia's military capacity in Eastern Europe is depleted in the Ukraine War, the less likely it is that Russia will even attempt to take military action against Poland at all (avoiding the lost lives and damage to property that comes with having a war fought on your own territory). While Russia hasn't thrown all of its military capacity in Eastern Europe into the Ukraine War, it has devoted a very large share of that military capacity to the Ukraine War, so losses in Ukraine undermine its ability to attack Poland.

It is a smart national defense investment to use your money to allow someone else to fight your most likely military opponent on their territory with their soldiers before you must fight that opponent on your territory with your soldiers.

It doesn't even really matter what the aid is ear-marked for, since money is fungible, and non-military foreign aid frees up Ukraine's funds for military spending, and lots of countries are willing to sell advanced arms to Ukraine at the moment.

Charlie Harding
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ohwilleke
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    That does make sense, if Poland is afraid of being next making Ukraine take longer or become a complete loss seems like a cheap way to do it. Spending money is cheaper then the lives/property damage that they might face otherwise. – Joe W Sep 06 '22 at 15:51
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    Also a good deal of donated military equipment, if it's counted in those aid numbers, is legacy Warsaw Pact stuff. That suits Ukraine just fine due to familiarity and Poland aims to replace it anyway. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Sep 06 '22 at 17:22
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    The Poles, who have been invaded by Russia several times over the centuries, expect that if Russia conquers Ukraine, they'll be next. – John Dallman Sep 07 '22 at 12:58
  • No NATO general seriously believes that Russia is able to win a war against any country, whether it's Poland or Ukraine or any other state. There are many reasons, one being deficiencies in leading and orga, another reason being the lack of support from the population, etc. Warsaw and the Baltic republics shout loudly something else, but in reality it's just their nationalistic trash talk since 1991. –  Sep 14 '22 at 06:47
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    @GeekestGeek No NATO general worth his or her salt believes that the outcome of a war with Russia can be predicted with any great degree of certainty. Russia has won many smaller post-Cold War conflicts. – ohwilleke Sep 14 '22 at 10:07
  • @ohwilleke No NATO general worth his or her salt believes that Russian military is any good. Even in a nuclear conflict, chances are that a fourth of Russian ICBMs would not be able to lift off, another fourth disintegrates during liftoff, another fourth misses the target, and the remaining part would hit the target without explosion. As for many conflicts, that's simply wrong. You cannot imagine how relaxed the NATO generals are (as opposed to the governments of the NATO countries). The best you can say is that Russia supported some of the conflict parties with some successes and failures. –  Sep 14 '22 at 19:45
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    @GeekestGeek: Betting millions of lives on the premise that all those ICBM failures encompass 100% of launches would be exceedingly stupid. You're assuming 100% failure of the detonators. Sounds like an insane foundation for foreign policy. – Ben Voigt Sep 28 '22 at 15:39
  • @BenVoigt The numbers are given for the sake of illustration. I cannot tell you whether it's 90% or 100%, and it's not about the failure of detonators, but about the failure of the whole process starting from the launch decision till destroying the target wanted. And nobody can predict this, including the Russian army itself. They had test failures in the past. What you can safely assume is that the quality of their ICBMs is NOT better than the quality of their cars (Lada, UAZ, etc.). Just because it's the organizational process that matters, and it's abysmal thoughout the whole country. –  Sep 28 '22 at 17:16
  • @BenVoigt You can also see the missile quality of (post-)Soviet-Union from the failures in the Ukraine: though no attack or defense general in their mind would waste their cruise missile stock and counter-missile stock on citizens (especially, on one's own citizens) or just fields and forests, all of it happened. The ratio is: over 4 countermissiles are spent per 1 attack missile, and they all fall somewhere. Purely numerically, most damages to the west-Ukrainian cities have been caused by the malfunctioning of the counter-missile technique. Nothing that Ukraine would ever wish to admit to. –  Sep 28 '22 at 17:25
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    @GeekestGeek Apples and oranges when nuclear missiles are involved. A loss of 1000 lives from counter-missile issues is well worth it to prevent one nuclear missile strike that would cause 100,000+ deaths if it hit, and even one out of twenty nuclear missiles launched actually working would be a global level catastrophe. – ohwilleke Sep 28 '22 at 19:36
  • @ohwilleke You have to counterweight it with the US and, more generally, NATO power. As opposed to the post-Soviet military equipment and organisation, the NATO equipment and organisation is working way better. 10⁵+ deaths in the West would be outweighed by 10⁶+ deaths in the East. I believe that this information is no longer a secret but, actually, in the public domain. That's why the NATO generals are so relaxed. –  Sep 28 '22 at 19:54
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So one of the main reasons would be to prevent a possible dissolution of Ukraine in this case Poland would have to deal with much more refugees from Ukraine as now. If you take a look at other countries giving so much and even more aid to Ukraine you see the Baltic states. The Baltic state and Poland are solidaric with Ukraine as fighting the common enemy. All these countries seeing themself next to be attacked by Russia should Ukraine fall.

NoDataDumpNoContribution
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convert
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  • If you take a look at other countrie giving so much and even more aid to Ukraine you see the Baltic states. --- I mentioned Poland for a reason. Baltic states didn't take so many refugees. – user366312 Sep 05 '22 at 14:45
  • @user366312 I mentioned the Baltic state just to show what countries giving the mos aid to Ukraine have in common. – convert Sep 05 '22 at 14:49
  • @Trilarion You tallking about "case"? – convert Sep 06 '22 at 11:31
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    @Trilarion Yes that´s what I meaned, but my english is not good so something like this hapens. – convert Sep 06 '22 at 19:37
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    @user366312 Please weight the number of refugees with the population of a certain country, before comparing Poland and Baltic States. Second, many of the people fled Ukraine by car or by train. Rather hard to reach Baltic states from Ukraine with these two means of transport ... – EarlGrey Sep 06 '22 at 22:23
  • UNHCR simply re-reports the number of border crossings that Russia has reported from Ukraine. Russia has its reasons to claim a large number of refugees (as in they run from the Nazis), Ukraine has its reasons to claim a large number of deportees. That just gives them both reasons to inflate the number in the same direction, but it doesn't necessarily make it more plausible.

    The numbers advanced are pretty odd TBH when it comes to detail "2.5 million people, including 38,000 children" (e.g. claimed by Ukraine recently).

     – the gods from engineering Sep 08 '22 at 19:01
  • Less than 2% of the refugees/deportees to Russia are children?? Most children stayed behind alone in the ruined buildings or something? – the gods from engineering Sep 08 '22 at 19:01
  • @Fizz during WW2 the first thing french families did at the start of the war was to send their children in the south, to be sure they'd be as far away as possible from the frontline. The numbers are perhaps wrong, however many sources talk about 1,5 million people. 38k children seems wrong, still there should definitely not be much children deported, as there was a real humanitarian effort at the start of the war to evacuate people. And children are always top priority. – Kaël Sep 28 '22 at 15:58
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Poland said before 2022 that regional powers should handle refugees.

Poland is providing quite a lot, per capita. During the 2015 refugee crisis, they refused to pitch in, citing their preparations for an Ukrainian contingency. Many who criticized them back then have since apologized. However:

  1. I believe your refugee numbers are outdated/incomplete. Schengen borders are open for Ukrainians, who can move on after the initial border crossing and only need to be registered if they want aid, health coverage, or to stay more than 90 days. Poland is still housing the largest number in the West, but not by the margin your graphic suggests. Here is what Wikipedia says, which puts Poland at 1.3 million in the second place after Russia.
  2. Your graphic for aid is explicitly listing bilateral aid in relation to GDP. It quotes the Kiel institute, yet if you scroll down the page of that institute you will see more numbers. In absolute terms, the US is by far the largest provider, followed by the EU, UK, Germany, Canada, Poland. Which still puts Poland into a highly respectable place, given their population and GDP. To really compare countries, one would have to break the massive EU contribution down by net payers.
o.m.
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    That is a good point, looking at the map going through Poland appears to be the best path for moving further into Europe and the rest of the world. – Joe W Sep 05 '22 at 15:54
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    Well, I'd take the Russia numbers with an even larger grain of salt. In any case, they are not linked to Poland by Schengen, so the numbers in Russia are least relevant to this Q, as opposed to those in (say) Germany. – the gods from engineering Sep 05 '22 at 17:14
  • This post doesn't address the question is the OP . – user366312 Sep 05 '22 at 19:21
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    @user366312, basically it answers the question by saying "it doesn't as much as you think." – o.m. Sep 06 '22 at 04:55
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    @Fizz The West and Russia seem to agree that some 2 million people moved from the Ukraine to Russia and that this was an event organized by Russia and not started by the people themselves (although the reasons given for the move strongly differ). Both sides also agree that this includes a large number of children without their parents (again the given reasons are very different). So I would assume the claims both sides agree on are indeed true. – quarague Sep 06 '22 at 08:57
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In short, the Poles historically have always been hating the Russians. This goes back as far as the war of 1605–1618, when union of Poland, Lithuania, and the Zaporozhian Cossacks first captured but then lost the city of Moscow. Warsaw also allied with the cruel, antisemitic Petliura in 1920 in his fight against the Bolshevik régime. In the 21st century, Warsaw wishes to take more influence than during the Soviet era. Naturally, Poland is interested in splitting the Russians and the Ukrainians and in fighting with the hands of the Ukrainians against the Russians. This is the best that can happen to the Poles regardless of the refugees. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, and finally Poland can spend a lot towards this goal rather than trying to solve domestic problems.

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    Poland also fought some wars against Ukrainians in the 20th century. Anyhow, I don't see what this answer adds compared to the accepted one, besides a smidgeon of "historic hatred" argument. – the gods from engineering Sep 14 '22 at 11:17
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Ukrainian_War – the gods from engineering Sep 14 '22 at 18:37
  • @Fizz These days, the Ukrainian antisemit Petliura is celebrated in the Ukraine. He was the one to make allies with the Poles on April 21, 1920. –  Sep 15 '22 at 09:33
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    @Fizz Do not underestimate the historically driven anxiety that Poland feels for its neighbours. Though relations inside of Europe post-2002 have improved, slightly changings its outlook on Germany, their negative outlook on Russia has de facto never faltered, except in the minds of people who still love the good-old communist days. This deep-seated paranoia against Russia has been used extensively by populists after the 2011 government plane crash, leading to a government led by piss, and has now gone back into overdrive. It is this paranoia that fuels the certainty of "we're next". – AtmosphericPrisonEscape Sep 29 '22 at 12:53
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Thus, Poland is trying to increase its influence in Ukraine. So, in response to Polish assistance, the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) adopted a law on the special status of Polish citizens in Ukraine.

The law establishes that citizens of the Republic of Poland, their spouses and children who entered Ukraine from the territory of the Republic of Poland for temporary residence, as well as their children born in Ukraine have the right to legally stay in the territory of Ukraine for 18 months from the day the law comes into force. The period of stay can be extended provided there are relevant supporting documents (enrolment in a higher education institution, move to the next academic year, conclusion of an employment contract, etc.). It is also stipulated that citizens of the Republic of Poland during their stay in Ukraine are entitled to:

  1. employment without a work permit for foreigners and stateless persons;

  2. state registration as taxpayers and obtaining a registration number of a taxpayer’s record card in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine;

  3. social security, including the right to assistance in case of full, partial or temporary disability, loss of provider, unemployment due to circumstances beyond their control in accordance with the legislation and international treaties of Ukraine;

  4. carrying out economic activity under the same conditions as citizens of Ukraine;

  5. receiving education on the same conditions as citizens of Ukraine, including at the expense of the state or local budget

  6. social payments (state assistance) according to the legislation of Ukraine;

  7. receipt of assistance from the Fund for social protection of persons with disabilities on the same terms as the citizens of Ukraine;

  8. free medical assistance in public and communal health institutions on the same conditions as those for citizens of Ukraine.