Views on Ukrainian refugees are changing due to misinformation

Web Desk

23rd Jul, 2022. 11:41 am
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Dominika Sokur says she hears angry responses that she thinks are caused by false information.
Out-of-control inflation has created a sense of economic dread that feeds fake news.
Research shows that support for Ukraine is still high, but it has been falling fast in recent weeks.

Ukrainian Refugees: When Dominika Sokur talks to her kids on the playground, she hears angry responses that she thinks are caused by false information.

“When we come to the playground, people go: ‘Ah, the Ukrainians have come, let’s get out of here’,” said Sokur, a 41-year-old Czech who lives in the town of Holubice north of Prague with his Ukrainian wife.

“I have overheard them complaining that we get to ride buses and visit the zoo for free.”

This shows that people in some parts of Europe are getting more angry at Ukrainian refugees. Experts say this is because of false social media posts about Ukrainian refugees and the benefits they get.

“Even my 65-year-old dad, who is not pro-Russian and supports Ukraine, is asking me what’s all this talk about Ukrainian Nazis. The disinformation is simply everywhere,” Sokur said.

The UN refugee agency says that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Europe has taken in almost six million refugees.

Countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia helped people escape the war by opening their borders, homes, and wallets.

But out-of-control inflation, which is especially bad in eastern Europe, has created a sense of economic dread that feeds fake news that says refugees are taking resources from people who need them.

Misinformation across borders

People are upset and angry that politicians are helping Ukrainians instead of taking care of their own people, according to the comments.

The claims made online vary from country to country, but they all say the same thing: Ukrainians are taking resources “from us”

“Refugees are always mentioned in the context of non-working immigrants waiting for benefits, luxury cars and so-called ‘health or benefit tourism’,” the Czech Elves, a network of several hundred volunteers who watch for false information online, said in a report from June.

In Poland, a recent post on a blog that is known for spreading false information said that Ukrainian refugees were getting free shopping vouchers while poor Poles were left with nothing.

In a Facebook post from Romania, it was said that “90 percent of those who cross the border are from the rich class, those who can afford to give 1,000-1,500 euros bribe to Ukrainian customs to cross over to us”

In the Czech Republic, which has taken in the most refugees per person, a false post went viral that said a Ukrainian family of four could get as much as $3,700 per month in aid, which is much more than the average Czech family’s income.

Contrary to what people say on social media, most Ukrainian refugees start looking for work almost as soon as they get to the Czech Republic. According to data from the Czech labour office, they often take manual jobs in construction, healthcare, or cleaning.

Tight finances make people angry

Gesine Schwan, a professor of political science and former candidate for the presidency of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has written a lot about refugees, says that stirring up anti-Ukrainian feelings is typical of Russian propaganda.

“Russia is extremely good at taking something that happened and misinterpreting it in such a way that it creates resentment,” Schwan told AFP in a telephone interview.

“(President Vladimir) Putin knows that the war he’s waging has provoked moral outrage. So he is trying to justify it by painting Ukrainians as the morally deficient ones.”

So far, this kind of propaganda and false information hasn’t had much of an effect. However, Nikola Horejs, the director of international affairs at the STEM sociological research institute in Prague, says that could change quickly if the economy gets worse.

STEM’s research shows that support for Ukraine is still high, but it has been falling quickly over the past few weeks, by as much as 100,000 people per week among the 10.7 million people in the Czech Republic, he said.

Horejs said, “There is a great fear among people that this exodus will ruin our countries economically,”

“The disinformation scene has adjusted. Their narrative is no longer that Putin is good or that the war doesn’t exist; the main theme now is that the governments are not addressing people’s economic problems, but helping Ukrainians instead.”