Rzeszów. 35 percent inhabitants are Ukrainians? No, this is a false message

A large discussion among Internet users about Ukrainians in Poland was sparked by a photo with a fragment of an article about Rzeszów, which was published on X by one of the Internet users on October 24. It shows the headline of the material posted on the RMF 24 website, which read: “In Rzeszów, 35 percent of the inhabitants are Ukrainians. This is the highest percentage among Polish cities.” Below you can see the name of the journalist who prepared the text, there is the station's logo, but there is no publication date. “Kraków has only 2 points less. And the rest of the cities will reach their maximum within a year,” he commented. author post with this attachment (original spelling of posts). The entry has been viewed over 150,000 times. times.

The message in the attached text sparked discussion. Many Internet users understood that the text was current and described the current situation in Rzeszów – and they threatened: “Unfortunate”; “It's terrible, where are we heading as a nation?”; “Mathematically speaking, they could organize themselves, become citizens, register and take over the city”; “And this is our drama that they gave us”; “in a few decades, Poles will wake up in a country where they will be a minority”; “So it will soon turn out that there are more Ukrainians here than in Ukraine”; “When I talked about the Ukrainization of Poland, I was called a Russian troll,” they commented.

Others, however, did not believe the data. “What nonsense”; “Hey, can you show the date of the article?”; “This is old data”; “Old article, Rzeszów was simply a longer stop for them at the beginning of the war,” they wrote.

As we have checked, the screenshot/photo in the post shows real text from the RMF24.pl portal, which however published April 26, 2022, more than two years ago. This is not visible in the post – and this is important, because the context changes the perception of this post information yes now given online.

Let us recall: in the morning of February 22, 2022, Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Already in the first days of the conflict, Poland was one of the main directions of escape for Ukrainians from the war. Rzeszów, the capital of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship bordering Ukraine, like other cities in the region, was the first stop for many war refugees. As a result of the conflict, several million citizens left Ukraine. By October 15, 2024, almost 6.2 million refugees from Ukraine were registered in Europe – according to data United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The armed conflict in Ukraine continues to this day.

In the text of RMF 24 from April 2022 we read: “Rzeszów is the largest Polish city located near the Ukrainian border. 104,784 Ukrainian citizens live in the capital of Podkarpacie, including over 30,000 children. There are 152,203 Ukrainians in the entire Rzeszów Metropolitan Area – yes results from the report of the Union of Polish Metropolises. The material published only two graphics visualizing statistics about Ukrainians living in Rzeszów. On the first one, among others it was reported: “35% of Rzeszów's inhabitants are Ukrainians. *As of April 1, 2022.” The graphic with the title “Rzeszów's increase in the number of inhabitants of the central city” shows that the city, according to data from the Central Statistical Office, had 196.6 thousand people. inhabitants, and according to the findings of the report's authors, by April 1, 2022, this number had increased to 301.4 thousand. It is reported that there were 104,784 Ukrainians in the city at that time, including 30,802 children.

These are two pages (pages 34 and 35) available online report Fri “Urban hospitality: great growth, challenges and opportunities – Report on refugees from Ukraine in the largest Polish cities.” On April 26, 2022, it was published by the Center for Analysis and Research of the Union of Polish Metropolises. Paweł Adamowicz (UMP). The aim of the report was “to determine the number of Ukrainians in the central cities and metropolitan areas of 12 UMP cities (Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Warsaw, Wrocław)”. The data presented the status as of April 1.

This means that the text showed statistics that are no longer valid today – more than two years after the outbreak of the war. Did UMP perform similar analyzes later? In response to our question, the Center for Analysis and Research of the Union of Polish Metropolises informed that one had been prepared update report – includes data for April and May 2022 and is also available online. So it also presents numbers from two years ago.

How many refugees from Ukraine are currently staying in Rzeszów? Data from the Contact and Civic Affairs Center of the Rzeszów City Hall – which the Chancellery of the Mayor of Rzeszów provided to the Konkret24 editorial office – show that by October 25, 2024, 18,969 PESEL numbers with UKR status were issued in Rzeszów. Additionally, the law firm informs:

This means that Ukrainians registered in Rzeszów constitute just over 2%. inhabitants of this city. Of course, there may be more Ukrainians staying there without registration – on the other hand, those registered do not have to live in the city anymore. However, the information now published on the Internet that refugees from Ukraine currently constitute as many as one third of the inhabitants of Rzeszów has no confirmation, and the information on the Internet was based on an old text in which the publication date was hidden.