Poznań: 60-year-old beaten after defending Ukrainian teen on tram; police search for suspects

The incident

On Friday, 17 July, a 60-year-old man was travelling on tram line 16 from Dębiec towards Osiedle Sobieskiego in Poznań. He witnessed three men verbally abusing a Ukrainian teenager. The boy did not respond, but the 60-year-old tried to calm the situation. The men then turned their aggression on him. After the group exited at ul. Kurpińskiego, one attacker punched the victim several times in the face and struck him with a knee to the chest and head. The man fell. A woman at the stop separated them, and the attackers fled.

The man started hitting the victim with his fists in the face, then struck him with his knee to the chest and head. The whole incident lasted less than a minute.

Victim’s condition and police report

The victim suffered memory loss and went to hospital. He reported the assault to police the next day, Saturday 18 July, accompanied by his wife. Because he could not recall details of the tram journey or the attack itself, officers had to reconstruct events from witness accounts and footage.

We began to establish where the incident took place because the man has memory loss. He didn’t remember which tram he was on, where he got on or off, nor the incident itself.

## Investigation Police secured CCTV recordings from the tram and the stop, interviewed eyewitnesses, and obtained a video that began circulating on social media. The footage confirmed the victim’s account. On Monday, 20 July, additional recordings were to be delivered by the municipal transport company. Officers are working to identify the suspects, described as men aged 25 to 30. A police spokesman said that if the men are not found quickly, their images may be released to the public.

MPK provided us with recordings from inside the vehicle. We also identified and interviewed eyewitnesses. We also have recordings that began circulating online. So we have all the material. Now it remains to determine who these people are.

Broader hate crime context

The attack is part of a documented rise in hate crimes in Poland. Deputy Interior Minister Czesław Mroczek reported a 30% increase, from 760 incidents in 2024 to 1,200 in 2025. A June 2026 report titled “Nie jesteśmy w domu. Ukraińscy migranci i uchodźcy o relacjach z Polakami” by Dr Olena Babakova and Prof. Przemysław Sadura noted growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment. Separately, the analytical centre Res Futura examined nearly 520,000 social media posts from May 2026 and found increasingly common anti-Ukrainian attitudes online.