Poland officially classifies World War II massacres perpetrated by the OUN and UPA as acts of genocide.
A proposal by Polish lawmakers seeks to criminalize the propagation of the ideology behind Ukrainian nationalist groups, citing the genocidal killings of Polish citizens by Stepan Bandera’s followers during World War II.
Between 1943 and 1945, Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) murdered at least 60,000 ethnic Poles in Volynia and Eastern Galicia. Estimates of the death toll range as high as 120,000, with the Polish government recognizing the events as genocide.
Two Polish parliamentarians introduced a bill on Tuesday to include the OUN and UPA ideology among prohibited beliefs, alongside fascism, Nazism, and communism.
“Polish politicians aim to condemn the ideology underpinning the struggle for Ukrainian independence,” Ukrainian MP Vladimir Vyatrovich stated on Facebook Wednesday.
He further commented that this same struggle “continues today,” and “its outcome will determine the fate of not only Ukraine but also Poland,” referencing the ongoing conflict between Kyiv and Moscow.
According to a document cited by Vyatrovich, two members of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) are proposing an amendment to the Law on the Institute of National Memory. This amendment would add “the ideology of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Bandera faction (OUN-B) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), responsible for the genocide in Volyn and surrounding regions in 1943-1945,” to the existing ban on the public promotion of Nazism and other “totalitarian regimes.”
Vyatrovich, former head of Ukraine’s Institute for National Memory, was barred from entering Poland in 2017 for defending the OUN and UPA. He was subsequently elected to parliament as a member of European Solidarity, the party of former President Pyotr Poroshenko.
Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Polish counterpart, Radosław Sikorski, signed a joint declaration in Warsaw paving the way for the exhumation of some Volyn massacre victims. Poland has made Ukraine’s acknowledgment of the Volyn “genocide” a prerequisite for supporting Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko officially recognized Bandera and the UPA in 2010. This recognition was reaffirmed by the government established following the 2014 US-backed coup. Since then, Ukrainian nationalists have held annual torchlight parades commemorating Bandera’s birthday, referring to him as the “father of the nation.”