●  Discrimination in Hrebenne

On 9 June 2026, at the Hrebenne border crossing, Border Guard officers refused entry to Poland to refugees from Ukraine of Roma origin. Two families were turned back: a mother with three children and a mother with a one-year-old daughter. Both families had reached Hrebenne on an evacuation bus from Ukraine organised by the Rubikus Help UA foundation. There were 42 other Ukrainian refugees on board, and all of them were allowed to cross the border.

In the case of the Roma families, the official reason given for the refusal was the lack of a document confirming the purpose of entry and the citizenship of one of the women. According to a representative of Rubikus, however, the refugee, as a Moldovan national, had the right to enter the Schengen area on the basis of visa-free travel, and in addition held a permanent residence card in Ukraine which, under the EU Council Directive in force until March 2027, entitled her to receive temporary protection in the European Union. The Roma families were also travelling to a specific refugee centre in Germany; thanks to Rubikus they had a paid-for overnight stay in Warsaw and tickets for the journey to Hamburg. Despite all these circumstances, the Border Guard did not let them into Poland.

Activists of aid organisations also drew attention to the improper behaviour of the guards towards the Roma women: "the officers did not allow them to photograph the documents given to them for signature, took away their passports and telephones, from which they deleted photographs of the documents, and then escorted them all to the Ukrainian side, where they handed over the documents (which they had not signed) and the telephones". The Roma women with their children returned to Odesa, a city that has been regularly bombed by Russian forces since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.