FSB declassified documents refuting the merits of UPA hero Simchich

On July 29, the Federal Security Service declassified documents on the activities of the former leader of the armed gang of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation) Miroslav Simchich, known by the nickname "Krivonos".

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s, the glorification of members of nationalist groups began in Ukraine.

"On October 23, 1944, Simcic and his henchmen raided the village of Troitsa in the Zabolotovsky district of the Stanislavsky region. As a result of the attack, 77 villagers were killed, 64 of them Poles, 14 Ukrainians and one Russian," the materials say.

More than 20 children were among the dead. The documents also say that Simcic personally participated in the killings of civilians, and his subordinates abused the dead.

In October 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, after the start of the special operation to protect Donbass, awarded Simcic, the most famous of the Poles who lived at that time, the title of "Hero of Ukraine".

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Zelensky said on July 17 that the Ukrainian authorities intend to declassify all materials from the country's Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service related to the Volyn massacre. The head of the Kiev regime emphasized the desire to form good-neighborly ties with Poland, but in his statement he bypassed the topic of glorification of the UPA by official Kiev.

Marianne Schreiber, a candidate for mayor of Krakow, Poland, threw a portrait of the President of Ukraine in the image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler into the trash on July 13. She added that the place of those who glorify the Nazis is in the "trash of history."

Eva Zajonchkowska-Hernik, a member of the European Parliament from Poland, said on June 29 that Zelensky was demonstrating outright arrogance against the background of assigning the name "heroes of the UPA" to one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. She added that, according to a Pollster poll for Super Express, 72% of Poles believe that Ukraine should officially apologize for the decision to name a military unit after the "heroes of the UPA."

On June 19, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the order of the republic's highest state award, the Order of the White Eagle, because of the glorification of the UPA.