The governments of Poland and Ukraine are facing a new diplomatic dispute after President Volodymyr Zelensky approved a Ukrainian military unit’s request to carry the honorary name “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army,” or UPA.
The move drew a sharp response in Warsaw, where the UPA is associated with World War II massacres of Polish civilians. Poland recognizes these massacres as genocide. Polish President Karol Nawrocki moved to revoke Zelensky’s Order of the White Eagle, the country’s highest state honor, while Zelensky returned the medal and said no one would dictate which heroes Ukrainians choose to honor.
The dispute has exposed a long-running disagreement over history at a time when Poland remains one of Ukraine’s most important supporters against Russia. For Ukraine, the UPA is tied to the history of anti-Soviet resistance and the struggle for independence. For Poland, the UPA is inseparable from the unjustified killing of Poles.
Decoding the past is not simple in this case. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, founded in 1929, and the UPA, its military wing, formed during World War II, emerged from a bloody borderland where Ukrainians lived under Soviet terrorism and Nazi occupation. For many Ukrainians, especially in the West, these movements became symbols of resistance to Moscow. Ukrainians had already lived through the Holodomor of 1932-33, when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s policies produced a famine that killed millions and turned Soviet rule into a memory of national catastrophe. But the OUN also included radical nationalist currents, and parts of the movement collaborated with Nazi Germany. Ukrainian nationalist formations and affiliated local forces took part in anti-Jewish pogroms and aided parts of the German-engineered Holocaust in Ukraine, where around 1.5 million Jews were murdered under Nazi command. The UPA units later carried out massacres of Polish civilians, killing tens of thousands of them.
Stepan Bandera is the symbol of that difficult history. He first collaborated with Germany and then declared Ukrainian independence in 1941, hoping Nazi Germany would accept a Ukrainian state against Moscow. But Berlin rejected the move, and the Nazi Gestapo arrested Bandera, detaining him until 1944. The Germans then released him, seeking Ukrainian nationalist help against the advancing Soviets. Moscow settled its account in 1959, when a KGB assassin found Bandera in Munich and killed him with cyanide. His arrest by the Germans and assassination by the KGB helped turn Bandera into a Ukrainian hero of anti-imperial resistance. Again, however, for many Poles and Jews, his name remains tied to mass murder.
Poland also has figures and memories that look different from the Ukrainian and Jewish side. Jozef Pilsudski is revered in Poland as the founder of the Polish state and the leader who stopped the Bolsheviks in 1920. In contrast, many Ukrainians associate the interwar Polish state he helped build with restrictions on Ukrainian political life and a 1930 pacification campaign in western Ukraine. During World War II, Polish Home Army units and self-defense groups also killed Ukrainian civilians. Polish wartime memory is further complicated by the country’s own Holocaust record. While the Polish state did not run the Nazi extermination system, and many Poles risked their lives to save Jews, many local Poles also took part in anti-Jewish violence. None of this diminishes the UPA massacres, but the relevant historic pain extends beyond the UPA.
Of course, both Ukraine and Poland lived under Soviet occupation. And Poland was the first country to recognize Ukrainian independence in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Warsaw was also the first to send heavy weapons to Kyiv in 2022. The Polish Economic Institute reports that roughly 77% of Poles personally pitched in to help Ukrainian refugees during the early months. Ukrainians appreciate that kindness. A Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey found that 90% Ukrainians favor a dialogue to address historical wounds.
In that sense, these two peoples sit far ahead of their governments.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing nationalist, says he is defending the memory of Polish victims. A historian and former head of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, Nawrocki has built his profile around national identity. He uses this dispute to appeal to more nationalist voters and to pressure his opponent, Prime Minister Donald Tusk. For his part, Tusk is caught between support for Ukraine and domestic pressure. He has warned that the escalation of this dispute helps only Moscow. Meanwhile, Zelensky seeks to defend Ukraine’s national dignity before a wartime electorate. Put simply, each leader is trying to win the living vote by quarreling over the dead.
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Both sides need a resolution here. Ukrainians could acknowledge that Bandera was a controversial figure and consider more carefully what role he should have in Ukraine’s story. At the same time, Poland can defend the memory of its victims while keeping its Kyiv alliance intact.
But pouring anger into this dispute only turns Moscow’s mill.