Ukraine will not join EU without changing historical policy, - Polish opposition leader Kaczynski
The leader of Poland's Law and Justice Party, Jarosław Kaczyński, called for blocking Ukraine's accession to the EU until Kyiv changes its policy toward the OUN and the UIA.
According to Censor.NET, Polsat News reports this, citing a letter from Kaczyński to members of the "Law and Justice" party.
Kaczyński stressed that if his party wins the next election, it will not allow Ukraine to join the EU until it changes its course.
"Ukraine cannot be admitted to the European Union unless it completely rejects the course it has chosen today… Poland, in its own interest, but also in the interest of European countries, and indeed in the interest of all of Christian civilization, cannot allow Banderaism—one of the most criminal and inhumane ideologies shaping the consciousness of the Ukrainian nation today—to be admitted into this community," the politician emphasized.
He also called on his fellow party members to use all available means to "block the Tusk government's efforts to integrate Ukraine into the European Union on preferential terms."
The Poland's Law and Justice Party leader emphasized that "no sovereign state can tolerate, even in the slightest, acts of genocide against its own nation."
The politician also stated that Poland and its citizens have borne and continue to bear "enormous financial costs to support the Ukrainian state and its army."
"Without broad external support, particularly from Poland, Ukrainian taxpayers are unable to maintain a combat-ready army and ensure the basic functioning of their state," Kaczyński asserted.
According to him, despite this situation, "an incredibly brazen and disrespectful act was committed: naming an important unit of the Ukrainian army—which, after all, is funded by the Poles—in honor of the incredibly brutal and ruthless murderers of the Polish population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia."
What happened before that?
- Tensions in Ukrainian-Polish relations flared up after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree on May 26 conferring the honorary title "Named After the Heroes of the UPA" on the "North" Special Operations Center of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The text of the document stated that the decision was made with the aim of "restoring the historical traditions of the national army."
- On May 29, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced his intention to strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle—Poland’s highest honor, which was awarded to him in 2023 by then-Polish President Andrzej Duda.
- Lech Wałęsa, former president of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, ostentatiously removed the pin featuring the Ukrainian flag that he always wore as a sign of protest, and accused Zelenskyy of "honoring UIA bandits," which, he said, "offended him personally and all the Poles who were killed."
- Bartosz Cichocki, the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Ukraine, officially returned the Order "For Merit"—which Zelenskyy had awarded him in 2022—in response to this same decision.
- Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau at the Office of the President of Poland, stated that Volodymyr Zelenskyy should personally call his Polish counterpart, Karol Nawrocki, and officially apologize for naming a Special Operations Forces unit "after the Heroes of the UPA."
- Subsequently, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the country’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle, amid a scandal over the naming of an elite unit of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces after the Heroes of the UIA.
