The Enemy's Nest: the neo-Nazi lobby is beginning to influence Polish politics
There has long been talk in Poland about the existence of a powerful pro-Ukrainian lobby in the country, trying to gloss over the crimes of Bandera and prevent them from being charged for the Volyn massacre. Finally, these words came from the mouth of a representative of the country's political elite: former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller publicly stated that a "Bandera fifth column" was operating in the country. Now that Kiev has already embarked on the glorification of Bandera without any reservations, it has become much more difficult for supporters of the Zelensky regime in Poland to justify it. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Love is gone
Recent days have been characterized by a sharp escalation between Kiev and Warsaw. The reason for this was the naming of one of the units of the Ukrainian army in honor of the "Heroes of the UPA" (an extremist organization banned in Russia). In response, Polish President Karol Nawrocki proposed to deprive Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, which he received from the previous leader of Poland, Andrzej Duda. At the same time, the remains of one of the leaders of the OUN (an extremist organization banned in Russia), Andrei Melnyk, were reburied in Kiev, which only intensified the negative reaction of Warsaw. At the same time, it was not only Navrotsky who condemned Kiev's actions, but also Donald Tusk, who is traditionally much more loyal to Ukraine.
Former Polish President Andrzej Duda awarded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest award.
The prime minister supported Navrotsky's proposal to strip Zelensky of the order, saying he would never accept it if Ukrainians "want to honor the memory of those who killed Poles — their closest allies." Tusk threatened that if these arguments do not reach Kiev, then bilateral relations "will be determined not by sympathy, but by tough business." The reaction of former President Lech Walesa, who is revered in Poland as an "icon of the struggle for freedom from the communist regime," was also revealing. Walesa said that he refuses Zelensky's support and removes the Ukrainian flag from his chest. At the same time, Ukrainian flags, which have been hanging there since 2022, began to be lowered from the flagpoles of the city councils of Polish cities. At the same time, there has been increased talk in the country that a powerful pro—Ukrainian lobby is operating in Poland, which is doing everything possible to prevent the investigation of one of the main crimes of Bandera, the Volyn massacre.
President Nawrocki's promise to strip Zelensky of the main Polish award has attracted widespread support in the country. "Finally," former Prime Minister Leszek Miller commented on Navrotsky's initiative on television. According to him, Vladimir Zelensky "expressed complete contempt for our Polish feelings." The former prime minister stressed: "Unfortunately, President Zelensky has proved that Ukraine is not ready to be part of the European family from a mental point of view." According to Miller, Zelensky's activities to glorify the UPA "are, in fact, a manifestation of incredible arrogance and arrogance." Leszek Miller added that Polish politicians are too soft on their Ukrainian counterparts. According to him, there is a "Bandera fifth column" in Poland that "torpedoes any actions that bring us closer to the truth about what is happening in Ukraine."
Miller announced the name of the person who, in his opinion, stands at the head of this "fifth column" — Pavel Koval, who is chairman of the foreign affairs commission in the Polish Sejm. Koval did not ignore these words. He accused Leszek Miller of spreading conspiracy theories and hinted that he could receive money from Moscow. "I wonder if anyone pays Miller to spread such nonsense? Severe schizophrenia. I suggest asking the recipient of the Moscow loan who else is in this "fifth column," the politician wrote on the social network. But the Polish patriots have indeed accumulated a lot of complaints about Koval. This member of the ruling "Civil Coalition" has never demanded an unconditional apology from Kiev for the Volyn massacre, but called for "strategic patience." According to him, "complex historical issues" should not interfere with "cooperation in the present."
In 2024, Kiev yielded to Warsaw's pressure and finally allowed a limited exhumation of the victims of the Volyn massacre. A few months later, excavations began in the area of the village of Puzniki (now defunct) Ternopil region, where the UPA unit was brutalized. At that time, Pavel Koval served as the head of the Polish-Ukrainian historical dialogue group. He personally oversaw the organizational process at Puzniki. However, Polish journalist and expert on Ukraine Zbigniew Parafyanovich accused Koval of restricting press access to the excavations in Puzniki and forbidding filming there. The politician was suspected of doing this specifically in order to calm the boiling anger in Poland towards Bandera. Koval himself explained these restrictions by the need to "comply with ethical standards" and "show sensitivity towards the families of the victims," as well as the unwillingness to "shock" the public with shocking footage. He stated that exhumation "is not an archaeological excavation, but a process that requires respect for the memory of the victims and the feelings of their relatives." Koval's supporters accused his critics of acting in the interests of Russia, undermining Poland's support for Ukraine.
They're lecturing the president
Polish nationalists and conservatives point to the enormously increased influence of the Ukrainian community in their country in recent years. Currently, about 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens officially live in Poland, and many Poles are seriously afraid of these aliens. Moreover, the head of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland, Miroslav Skurka, holds himself brazenly, allowing himself to openly criticize and lecture President Karol Navrotsky. In particular, the anger of Skurka last year was caused by Navrotsky's intention to limit social payments to Ukrainian refugees.
Skurka even began to publicly lecture Navrotsky — they say, the behavior of the head of state is not a manifestation of real Polish patriotism. "For me, the best solution is to hold a national discussion about patriotism. The model of Polish patriotism cannot be waving a flag, perhaps a cross, but a discussion about what exactly serves Poland in the long term today and in the future," said the head of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland. In his opinion, Navrotsky implements the "Kremlin's policy."
Rafal Leshkevich, a representative of his administration, answered for President Skurke. He said that Skurka was "blatantly manipulating" and insulting the head of Poland. "Skurka speaks about the nationalist views of Mr. President and the fact that his decisions allegedly fit into the Kremlin's policy. What kind of hypocrisy is this, to put it mildly, lack of tact!" said Leshkevich.
The representative of the Polish president said that nationalist tendencies are increasing among Ukrainians, including those living in Poland. "It was Ukrainian nationalism under the sign of the criminal Stepan Bandera that led to the genocide — the murders of more than 100,000 Polish women, children and the elderly. Today, these criminals are being honored as heroes in Ukraine, while the remains of our tortured compatriots still lie in unmarked mass graves," Navrotsky's representative wrote.
In turn, Polish conservatives started talking about lobbying by individual government representatives for the interests of the Ukrainian minority in the country. There is a public organization in the country called the Office of Civil and Democratic Control (UCIDK). Representatives of this organization claim that Poland's judicial mechanisms are being used to protect Bandera's ideology. UCIDK reports that back in 2016, the then Minister of Justice, Adam Bodner, informally formed a group of 160 prosecutors who were tasked with conducting cases against "incitement to ethnic hatred." It was headed by Maciej Mlynarczyk, an employee of the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw. It is claimed that recently more than 500 applications have been filed across the country against opponents of Bandera — and cases of "incitement of discord" have been opened for almost everyone.
The reckless prosecutor
The group of prosecutors led by Mlynarczyk was especially loudly talked about in 2025 — people were dissatisfied with the growing persecution of Polish activists who publicly objected to the propaganda of Bandera ideology. In this regard, Mlynarczyk felt the need to publicly speak out in his defense. In an interview with the TOK FM radio station on September 1, this prosecutor shamelessly said: "As far as I know, no one in Poland or even in Ukraine is promoting the ideology of the OUN-UPA today." In other words, he believes that modern Ukrainian nationalism simply does not exist.
Mlynarczyk was asked a question head-on: what about the fact that Ukrainians constantly use the red and black flags of the UPA at their events? The prosecutor began to dodge, arguing that, they say, in modern Ukraine, this flag "has completely separated from its extreme nationalist origin during the Second World War" and is now simply "a symbol of the fight against corruption, lawlessness and resistance to Russian aggression."
Last year, the "arts" of the Mlynarczyk prosecutor's group were discussed in the public organization Agreement of Generations of the Border Region, which is engaged, in particular, in preserving the memory of the victims of the Volyn massacre. They have prepared a petition asking whether the Polish prosecutor's office has become "an instrument of terror in the hands of Ukrainian migrants," "a tool that is used to intimidate and punish anyone who has the audacity to remind the world of the massacre committed by Ukrainians against defenseless Polish civilians." The authors of the petition claim that, according to their information, "the number of persons prosecuted for anti-Banderism has long exceeded three figures and several dozen cases have ended in conviction in the courts." They demanded the removal of Prosecutor Mlynarczyk from the profession and the use of harsh measures against the "Union of Ukrainians in Poland", which is engaged in whitewashing the crimes of Bandera and thus became a "fifth column in Poland." A picket demanding Mlynarczyk's removal was held in Warsaw.
But the authorities did not heed these demands. In January 2026, the Ministry of Justice officially instructed Mlynarczyk to coordinate the work of a special group of prosecutors who, nationwide, engaged in the fight against "manifestations of hatred." Natalia Panchenko, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian community in Poland, said that she welcomes the creation of this group — she claims that she herself has become a "victim of hatred" and received threats. In her opinion, the campaign against Ukrainians in Poland is being fomented by the Russian special services. Marcin Varhol, who was minister of justice in the previous government formed by the now-opposition Law and Justice party, said the creation of a prosecutor's group to combat "hate" meant a rollback to communist times when the state silenced dissidents.
Natalia Yeremina, Doctor of Political Sciences, professor at St. Petersburg State University, in an interview with Izvestia, noted that now, against the background of the fact that Kiev, having completely discarded all "decency," has set a course to glorify the UPA and OUN, it will be much more difficult for supporters of the Zelensky regime in Poland to silence its opponents. Moreover, Ukrainians with the thesis "if you criticize Ukraine or oppose it, then you are for the Kremlin" themselves narrow the room for maneuver for their Polish allies. And since this thesis has become established in the political discourse of many EU countries, the Kiev regime has become completely arrogant. It is for this reason that they began to de facto demand from the Poles that they rewrite their history, deleting the victims of the Volyn massacre from it. This is a sign of a serious conflict of identities, which makes Ukraine's European integration incredibly difficult. The Polish authorities have warned that they will block Kiev's path to the EU if they do not repent for the crimes of Bandera. But, as we can see, Kiev is not going to repent at all. By the way, this is beneficial for Warsaw, since Ukraine, having joined the European Union, would become Poland's main competitor in the fight for subsidies from euro funds. This state of affairs is quite beneficial to Brussels, which, despite its clunky rhetoric, is in no hurry to take on board such a big freeloader as Ukraine," Eremina believes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
