Personally, I've studies both languages for little amounts of time each. As someone who is still a beginner in both means I won't be able to say too much on this topic, but here is my opinion based on what I know:
Well, you didn't actually think it would be that simple, do you?
Pronunciation, spelling, and writing
For pronunciation, it has to go out to Polish, mainly because of Polish having a LOT of consonant clusters, and it also has many sounds that are very unfamiliar to English speakers. But don't think that Russian pronunciation is gonna be much easier, Russian also has sounds unfamiliar to English speakers and consonant clusters also appear quite often.
For spelling and writing, Polish is definitely a easier, here's why: Polish is written using the Latin alphabet (just like English), so as long as you learn a few symbols with accents you'll be able to read all of Polish quite easily, while Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is new to English speakers, however, the Cyrillic alphabet really isn't that hard to learn. When it comes to spelling, Russian and Polish are both quite phonetic, meaning that a word is usually pronounced as it is spelled. However, even with little experience in both languages, I am pretty confident to say that it is simpler in Polish. Polish letters are ALWAYS read the same, one way. But.. there are diphthongs, so be careful there. Also, there are no silent letters in Polish. Russian spelling is again, not much harder, however, letters do often seem to be pronounced slightly different than they appear (mainly due to stress, we'll get into that later), and the choice between one and two "n" sounds in Russian can get quite confusing... but other than that, these are pretty similar, since both are quite phonetic, it won't make too much of a difference as long as you know the rules of each.
Stress on words
Boy... stress, is WAY harder in Russian than Polish. Honestly, I heard it gets easier as you go on, but even so, word stress in Russian is the worst part of the language to me, not writing, not grammar, 80% of the time when I thought about giving up on learning Russian was because of word stress. Russian has a free stress system, meaning it is never very obvious where the stress falls on in a word, and you can't get it wrong either, because if you do, then it sounds plain ridiculous to a native Russian. Also, vowels in Russian change depending on if it is stressed or unstressed, one example would be how an "o" sounds more like "a" when it isn't stressed, or that "ya" might sound more like "ye". Polish is also a stress language, but stress is usually a lot more fixed. In Polish the stress usually falls on the second to last syllable in a word, with this rule, stress becomes a lot less stressful (pun intended).
Grammar
Polish and Russian are both Slavic languages, so both languages share quite similar grammar, however this one has to go to Polish, note though, that the difference is only by a little, so this won't effect you too much in learning, grammar in both of these languages will be absolutely hell for a native English no matter which one you study. But there are a few reasons this one goes to Polish. For one thing, Polish has 7 cases, while Russian only has 6. But that case doesn't press too much on you as it is, but also, Polish has a lot less straightforward of a case system in general, but Russian's case system really isn't straightforward either. Next, verbs. Polish verbs have 4 groups of endings in the present tense (and you just have to know which group the verb belongs in), and on top of that, the stem of the verb almost always seems to change, and it still isn't considered irregular (This is my way of telling Spanish learners to stop complaining about irregular verbs, because if you go about it the right way, they aren't too hard), on top of that, they're are still irregular verbs! We aren't getting into that now, because I think you see my point. Russian conjugations are usually more straightforward, there are only two groups of endings for verbs in present tense, and you can tell which one to use based on the ending of the verb. But don't get too excited, as Russian also has irregular verbs that break these rules, and also spelling rules that completely change the ending anyways. When it comes to verbal aspect, both Russian and Polish are annoying in that sense, there seems to usually always be two verbs based on aspect in both languages, no comparison there. Same for adjectives (at least from what I've studied so far).
In conclusion, I think that Polish is easier than Russian overall, many would disagree, but that is just my opinion. But, Polish is still very difficult for English speakers, but just because of the use of the Latin alphabet, fixed stress patterns, very clear spelling, Polish is easier. But again, this is all about opinion, if stress doesn't stress you out (get it ;) ), and the Cyrillic alphabet is no big deal (trust me, it really isn't) then Russian might just be easier for you. It's all opinion.
This is coming from someone who only knows both of these languages to a beginner level, and has studied Russian for longer than Polish, I would like to hear others opinions on this matter, as they are both pretty similar in difficulty.
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