PiS politician: Ukraine must not glorify murderers to join EU

Przemysław Czarnek, a deputy leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, has strongly condemned Ukraine's decision to name a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), drawing parallels between the UPA's actions and Nazi ideology. Speaking at the Monument to the Victims of Volhynia in Lublin, Czarnek stated that the Volhynia massacre was driven by the "Banderite ideology of OUN-UPA," which he described as ethnic cleansing carried out in the most brutal manner.

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This is nothing else but Ukrainian nationalism, which led and unfortunately led to ethnic cleansings on an unprecedented scale, to the extermination of all other nationalities inhabiting those lands in the most brutal way possible, even zoologically, as Kołodziński himself stated – wrongly, because animals do not behave like that. Only completely perverted people, devoid of any values, behave like that.

Czarnek asserted that Ukraine's glorification of figures involved in the massacre, whom he labeled as "criminals" and "collaborators of the Third Reich," is unacceptable. He compared naming a military unit after the UPA to naming a German military unit after Adolf Hitler or Rudolf Höss. "Nazism and German national socialism, which had the same assumption, ethnic cleansing and the creation of a pure race in the lands inhabited by Germans, is no different from what the Ukrainians wanted to do and did," he stated.

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Today we have an absolute moral obligation, not just a right, to shout to all European and world capitals to stop the resurgence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine, because there is no other name for it.

The Polish politician emphasized the moral obligation to prevent the resurgence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine, warning that such glorification would prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union or any other international structures. He also called for the exhumation and dignified burial of the tens of thousands of victims of the Volhynia massacre, who he said lie in the fields of Ukraine.

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If someone names a military unit after the 'heroes of the UPA,' that is, those criminals who most bestially murdered Polish families, the elderly, mothers, fathers, children, if someone calls them heroes today, it is no different than if today a military unit in Germany were named after Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Höss, Waffen-SS.

Czarnek's remarks highlight a significant point of contention in Polish-Ukrainian relations, particularly concerning historical memory and the interpretation of World War II events. The UPA's role in the mass killings of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia during the war remains a deeply sensitive issue, and Czarnek's strong language reflects a segment of Polish public opinion that views Ukraine's historical narratives with skepticism and criticism.

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Ukraine will not be a member of the European Union or any European and world structures if it refers to the genocide of the Polish nation.