"It is worth reminding Poles that Home Army and UPA were even allies at one point," - Sytnyk
Ukraine and Poland should focus on the challenges they face together and not allow Russia to use historical disputes to undermine bilateral relations
This was stated by Marharyta Sytnyk, a journalist and co-founder of the NGO ‘Holka’, according to an article on Censor.NET entitled ‘The patriots’ game: who is fuelling the cold "little war" between Poland and Ukraine, and what needs to be done to stop Putin from clapping his hands’.
Details
She said that she had attended the Conference on Ukraine’s Recovery in Gdańsk and had spoken to several representatives of various organisations, including government bodies, about what we could do to either defuse the situation or at least prevent it from escalating.
"Some of them said that ‘although we are state institutions, we understand the shared challenges and the danger of relations deteriorating’. They propose that think-tanks — both Polish and Ukrainian — meet to find this joint solution. But from each of them, one could hear: ‘As long as no new news stories emerge! Stories that Poland, in particular, could latch onto and use to stir up a new wave of propaganda… We can see that the FSB is now actively working in this direction, fabricating evidence of the UPA’s involvement in the Volhynia tragedy,’ noted Sytnyk."
The journalist believes it is worth highlighting the positive things our countries have in common.
"This is where the media and the civil society sector need to get involved. And we have a lot of good things in common — in our cuisine, our traditions and our music."
And historically speaking: the Poles and Cossacks once stormed Moscow; now the Ukrainian Armed Forces are setting it ablaze. Even if we take that very same story from Volhynia, the Home Army and the UPA did in fact hold negotiations — and at one point were allies. In May 1946, the UPA and the Home Army joined forces to rout an NKVD detachment in Hrubieszów. We must remember that we have a common enemy, but we must learn to live in peace without him," she added.
Read the article on the tensions in relations between Ukraine and Poland via the link.
What led up to it?
- Tensions in Ukrainian-Polish relations flared up after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree on 26 May conferring the honorary title ‘in the name of the Heroes of the UPA’ on the ‘North’ Special Operations Centre of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The text of the document stated that the decision had been taken with the aim of "restoring the historical traditions of the national army".
- On 29 May, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced his intention to strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest honour, which had been awarded to him in 2023 by the then Polish President Andrzej Duda.
- Lech Wałęsa, former President of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, ostentatiously removed the badge featuring the Ukrainian flag that he always wore as a sign of protest, and accused Zelenskyy of "honouring UPA 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, has, as a result of this same decision, officially returned the Order "For Merit", which Zelenskyy had awarded him in 2022.
- Marcin Przydacz, Head of the International Policy Bureau at the Office of the President of Poland, stated that Volodymyr Zelenskyy should personally telephone his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki and formally apologise for naming a Special Operations Forces unit ‘after the Heroes of the UPA’.
- Subsequently, the President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, stripped the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of the country’s highest honour, 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 UPA.
