Wasyl Bodnar admitted that UPA was a criminal killing Poles. However, the Ukrainian Ambassador immediately added that many criminal acts were besides to be charged by Poles and the Polish underground. The designation of the perpetrators' guilt is simply a essential step, but an effort to blur the work cannot replace the fact about the planned anti-Polish CNS-UPA action.
Ambassador recognizes crimes, but defends Bandera
Vasily Bodnar, Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, said that among the members of the Ukrainian Insurgency Army there were criminals who killed Poles. He besides warned that many equally criminal acts were committed by Poles and members of the Polish underground. In the same speech he presented Stepan Bandera as 1 of the heroes of the conflict for Ukrainian independence, who deserves recognition.
Just admitting that UPA members murdered Poles does not close the case. The problem begins where the work of the organization and its management is dissolved in the stories of both parties' wines. past knows the crimes committed by Polish troops on Ukrainian civilians. They must be examined, named and commemorated. However, this does not give emergence to false symmetry.
Anti-Polish action had its own purpose
Prof. Mirosław Szumiło, a historian from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and the Institute of National Memory, recalled in an interview published by the Polish Press Agency that in the summertime of 1943 the main enemy of UPA was Poles. The formation then focused on the alleged anti-Polish action, i.e. killing the Polish population. A year later, criminal activities took east Galicia.
The Polish underground, including the National Army and the Peasants Battalions, ran retaliation actions. Ukrainian civilians were besides killed in the process. all specified sacrifice deserves the fact and a worthy grave. However, the difference remains fundamental: according to Prof. Szumiła, the main perpetrator of the massacre was UPA, and its actions were organized action aimed at Polish population. Retaliation, even criminal, does not alter the chronology or intent of the first operation.
This assessment is confirmed by the planet War II Museum. The institution emphasizes that the subsequent fight of UPA against the Red Army and the NKVD cannot erase or marginalize crimes committed in Poles. 1 can realize why any Ukrainians see in this formation a symbol of opposition against the Soviets. However, Poland is not obliged to accept a story that omits Polish graves.
The memory of the victims is not a tool against Ukraine
A tough stance towards the worship of the CNS-UPA does not mean hostility towards Ukrainians. Poland supports the attacked Ukraine due to the fact that Russian imperialism besides threatens our security. That is why the relations of both countries must be based on truth, not on silence forced by war. An alliance built on moral blackmail will be weak.
Poland besides has a work to honestly analyse Sahryn and another places where Ukrainian civilians were killed by Polish troops. A nation of its own past is not afraid of its own faults. Nor does he agree that these faults service as a veil for the work of CNS-UPA for mass extermination of Poles in Volyn and in east Galicia.
It is peculiarly unacceptable to defend Bandera as a figure worthy of designation without unequivocally rejecting the ideology and heritage of its environment. The Ukrainian people have many heroes of the modern fight against Russia. He does not request patrons whose worship hurts the memory of Polish victims and poisons relations with his nearest neighbour.
The subjectivity of Polish policy is at stake
Warsaw should request full access to archives, efficient exhumations, worthy burials and consent to basic facts. Not in the form of an anti-Ukrainian campaign, but as a condition for mature partnership. Military and political aid to Kiev does not deprive Poland of the right to defend its own memory.
For Poles there is more at stake than a dispute over the words of the ambassador. The question is whether the Polish state can simultaneously argue Russia and defend the fact about its own citizens murdered in the Kresach. Tough realism requires both of these things. relationship with Ukraine can only last if there is no false sign of equality over graves.
Sources: message by Ambassador Wasyl Bodnar reported by HISTORY.org.pl; conversation by PAP with Prof. Mirosław Szumiła of 3 June 2026; position of planet War II Museum of 29 May 2026.
Source: Banderism / Ukraine (monitor PL)
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