In less than four years - about 16,000 crimes against Ukrainians have been reported in Berlin
Nearly four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, police in Berlin have recorded 16,120 crimes against Ukrainian nationals. The majority involve assault, theft, threats, and coercion, with suspects identified in fewer than half of the cases.
The figures come from a response by the Senatsverwaltung für Inneres (Senate Department for the Interior) and Berlin police to a parliamentary inquiry by Green Party representative Vasili Franco, reported by dpa. The annual number of reported crimes has steadily increased, rising from nearly 2,700 in 2022 to around 4,000 in 2023, 4,500 in 2024, and reaching 4,618 in 2025. During the same period, the number of Ukrainians living in Berlin grew to approximately 70,000.
The highest number of incidents was recorded in the districts of Mitte with 2,619 cases and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf with 2,481. The lowest figures were reported in Treptow-Köpenick with 696 cases and Steglitz-Zehlendorf with 575.
Assault accounts for a striking share of the offenses. Around 4,200 reported cases involved bodily injury, representing more than a quarter of all crimes against Ukrainians — a significantly higher proportion than typically seen in overall crime statistics. Nearly 3,000 cases involved theft, while other reported offenses included insult, fraud, embezzlement, sexual offenses, robbery, and property damage.
According to police data, 37 of the crimes were classified as politically motivated, including cases of insult, incitement to hatred, and assault. The Senate also pointed to far-right media outlets spreading hostile narratives against Ukrainian refugees, such as claims of preferential treatment. Vasili Franco described the high number of assaults as alarming and stressed that solidarity with Ukraine must be made more concrete, adding that many politically motivated crimes may go unreported or unrecognized.