Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree giving an element of Ukraine’s army the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA”. However the nationalist Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia (UPA) or Ukrainian Insurgent Army is notorious in Poland for the mass murder of civilians during WW II. Polish President Karol Nawrocki and his predecessor Lech Wałęsa are now calling for Zelensky to be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour, awarded in 2023. Can the rift be bridged?
Kyiv must put up with criticism too
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Too much should not be made of the tensions as there are more pressing issues right now, Rzeczpospolita urges (Russia):
“Poland should support Ukraine to ensure that Zelensky’s administration and not the members of the UPA, who have blood on their hands, are seen as the true heroes in the fight for independence and freedom. It must be possible to criticise Zelensky, as well as Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. ... Morally, we must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed. But there is a time and a place for everything.”
Tactical alliance shatters against wall of contradictions
Izvestia sees the historical dispute as an obstacle to Ukraine’s European integration (Russia):
“There was an immediate barrage of harsh criticism [in Poland] directed at the Ukrainian leadership for its open glorification of ‘killers of Poles’ and ‘UPA bandits’. In Warsaw, people are explicitly saying that integrating Ukraine into the European sphere is impossible under such circumstances. This latest dispute clearly demonstrates that a tactical alliance between two states based solely on short-term foreign policy considerations will inevitably shatter against the wall of unresolved historical and economic contradictions, which Warsaw is no longer willing to ignore.”
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A dangerous logic
Historian and MP Volodymyr Viatrovych writes in a Facebook post republished by Obosrevatel (Ukraine):
“Some Polish politicians seek to portray the entire Ukrainian Insurgent Army as criminal. And according to this logic there can be no heroes in a criminal organisation. Ukraine cannot accept such an approach – and not just because it’s historically unfounded but because condemning the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is just a small step away from condemning the Ukrainians’ entire struggle for independence. And this is entirely in line with Russian policy, which aims to deny Ukrainians the right to their own state – not only in the past, but also today.”
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