Zelensky ignites fury by honouring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to name a military unit after a World War II-era militia infamous for massacring Poles and Jews has led to a sharp spike in tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw.
Some things are better off staying buried. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a presidential decree on May 26 bestowing the honourary title of “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army”, or UPA, on an elite unit of the nation’s special forces.
As the armed wing of the far-right Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the UPA carved out a gruesome name for itself in the shifting borderlands between Poland and Ukraine during World War II.
It remains infamous in Poland for its role in the massacres of ethnic Poles and Jews in Volhynia and eastern Galicia – massacres that Polish historians believe killed tens of thousands civilians, and that the Polish state considers part of a deliberate campaign of genocide.
Zelensky’s decree was all the more striking for having the uneasy makings of a pattern. The day before, the Jewish president had presided over the reburial of the repatriated remains of Andriy Melnyk in the national military ceremony near Kyiv.
Melnyk, who died in Germany in 1964 and had been buried in Luxembourg, was the leader of a branch of the OUN – and a staunch advocate for collaboration between the Ukrainian nationalist movement and Nazi Germany and its fascist allies.
Melnyk now lies buried with full state honours alongside Ukrainian soldiers killed during the four-year struggle against the Russian invasion, hailed as a national hero by the same Zelensky who once spoke proudly of his own grandfather’s fight against the genocidal Nazi regime in the ranks of the Red Army.
Under strain
The president’s actions have been met with shock across the border in Poland.
Former Polish president Lech Walesa, who had led the Solidarity trade union movement that brought down the Soviet-backed Communist government in Poland at the close of the Cold War, said on social media that he had wrenched the Ukrainian flag badge from his chest upon hearing of the decree. While he said he would continue to support Ukraine’s fight against Moscow, he would not – could not – support its president.
Left-wing former prime minister Leszek Miller described the decree as akin to Germany renaming a military unit after the Nazis’ Einsatzgruppen death squads.
And conservative President Karol Nawrocki called for the Ukrainian president to be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, the nation’s highest state honour that was bestowed on Zelensky by Nawrocki’s predecessor Andrzej Duda in the wake of the Russian onslaught.
"Glorifying the UPA has provided Russian propaganda with plenty of fuel for disinformation," he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long justified his assault on Ukraine in part as a campaign to "de-Nazify" the country.
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An open wound
Poland presses Ukraine to drop street name honoring Nazi collaborator
Published 11 Jun, 2026 23:53 | Updated 12 Jun, 2026 07:54
Polish officials from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party have urged the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia to rename a street honoring Stepan Bandera, the nationalist leader whose movement was responsible for the massacre of more than 100,000 Poles during World War II.
Relations between Poland and Ukraine have soured since late May, when Vladimir Zelensky named a commando unit after the “Heroes of the UPA,” the military wing of Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
On Thursday, council members in the Polish city of Kielce urged their chairman to formally ask Vinnytsia to remove Bandera’s name from the street, describing it as a “blemish” on Polish-Ukrainian relations. The street, formerly named after Leo Tolstoy, was renamed in 2022 as part of Ukraine’s broader campaign to eliminate Russian-linked place names.
“In Poland, Stepan Bandera and the legacy of the OUN-UPA are unequivocally associated with mass crimes against defenseless civilians,” the officials wrote in a letter published on the broadcaster Telewizja Swietokrzyska’s website.
Polish historians and public consider the OUN leader to be “unequivocally responsible for the genocide of Polish civilians, including in Volhynia,” they added.
On Wednesday, Kielce mayor Agata Wojda announced that Vinnytsia had withdrawn its request for 15 used buses from the Polish city following criticism from local officials and residents. The proposed transfer was intended to support Vinnytsia’s largely electric public transport network, which has faced disruptions due to Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid and military-industrial facilities.
The latest dispute comes amid worsening ties between Poland and Ukraine following the “Heroes of the UPA” controversy. Despite the backlash, Kiev has no plans to rename the military unit, Liga.net reported on Thursday, citing a government source.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk last week placed full responsibility for the row on Ukraine, warning that Warsaw could take a more transactional approach toward Kiev and increasingly prioritize its own “hard business interests” if Ukraine does not change course.
Moscow has long maintained that the current government in Kiev glorifies Nazis at the state level. Russia has repeatedly stated that the “denazification” of Ukraine remains one of its key objectives and conditions for a peace settlement in the conflict.
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