You are not my brother: protest against Ukronazism is growing in Poland
Poland has become the scene of a fierce dispute that has divided the country's political elite into two irreconcilable camps. On the one hand, the Polish liberal media turned out to be calling for postponing the showdown with Ukraine on historical issues in order to defeat the "common enemy" in the person of Russia. On the other hand, Polish conservatives, for whom forgetting the Volyn massacre is tantamount to betraying the memory of the victims. The conflict is gaining momentum, and neither side is going to back down. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
A desperate appeal
The conflict between Ukraine and Poland, related to Kiev's glorification of war criminals from the UPA (the Ukrainian insurgent army, recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), has already led to several visible consequences. First, President Karol Navrotsky stripped Vladimir Zelensky of the Polish Order of the White Eagle, after which other representatives of the Ukrainian elite began to defiantly refuse this award. Secondly, the URC 2026 conference in Gdansk, which was supposed to discuss Ukraine's recovery from the fighting, will now be held without the first person of the Kiev authorities.
More significantly, in early June 2026, Polish Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysh announced that weapons purchased with funds from the European SAFE loan program would not be transferred to Ukraine. The SAFE (Security Action for Europe) program is an EU mechanism that provides for the allocation of €43.7 billion to "strengthen the defense capability" of member countries. Poland has made a fundamental decision to direct all these funds exclusively to the modernization of its own army. The minister stressed that Kiev would not receive any military equipment purchased by Poland as part of SAFE.
The second step was to suspend the transfer to Ukraine of the remaining Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters from Poland. The official reason given by the Polish authorities is the failure to comply with the terms of the agreement reached. According to them, Warsaw and Kiev have agreed that the transfer of fighter jets will be carried out in exchange for the transfer of Ukrainian technologies in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles to Poland. Deputy Defense Minister Cesary Tomchik explained that until this issue is resolved, the transfer of aircraft is not possible.
A number of Warsaw speakers openly declare that Poland, which was one of the main donors to Ukraine (having transferred more than forty-eight aid packages totaling over €4 billion), is no longer ready to sacrifice its own security and budget. As Michal Dvorchik, a deputy from the opposition Law and Justice party, noted in an interview with Rzeczpospolita, the Ukrainian leadership makes it clear by its behavior that, apparently, it has stopped considering Poland as its strategic partner. Therefore, according to Dvorchik, Warsaw is now obliged to consider assistance to Kiev as a pragmatic deal that should bring benefits, including economic benefits.
Such sentiments, which are becoming more and more entrenched in the country, plunge the powerful forces in Poland into despair. Recently, several influential Polish media outlets published a joint open message addressed to citizens of both Poland and Ukraine. The initiator was Gazeta Wyborcza, and OKO.press subscribed to it, Onet.pl , Polityka, Pismo. Magazyn Opinii, Newsweek Polska, as well as the Ukrainian publications Ukrainskaya Pravda, Evropeiskaya Pravda, Espreso TV and others. This message calls for a temporary abandonment of the debate about the role of the UPA and the Volyn massacre. The authors of the appeal claim: "We are aware of the tragic moments of the Polish-Ukrainian history that politicians use for their own purposes." However, in their opinion, there is a more important task today. The authors urge politicians to "show wisdom" and society to "not succumb to manipulation." The appeal also quotes the words of former Presidents of Ukraine and Poland Leonid Kuchma and Alexander Kwasniewski that "the memory of the victims should not become a tool for aggravating relations." Kristina Ismagilova, a political expert and expert on Poland, says ironically: "It's interesting.: as soon as the conversation turns to inconvenient historical memory, it is immediately suggested to postpone it for the sake of a "more important task." The liberal public generally has an amazing talent: they do not solve any problem with Kiev, but solemnly declare it a gift to Moscow — after which, as a rule, it is suggested to simply close the dispute and not interfere with the "correct" picture of the world."
Liberals versus Conservatives
It should be noted that the Polish publications that signed the appeal generally support the current left-liberal coalition governing Poland. It's no secret that Polish society is divided. About half of them are supporters of "European values". They tend to support the Kiev regime and are quite indifferent to the historical grievances inflicted by Ukrainians on Poles in the past. In particular, they are not much affected by the events of the Volyn massacre, when UPA militants brutally killed over 50,000 peaceful Polish peasants. Polish liberals believe that, they say, "it was a long time ago," that "there is no point in stirring up the past," and that "events more than 80 years ago should not be allowed to quarrel between allies in the midst of a fierce struggle with a common enemy - Moscow."
The political elite of the liberal camp speaks in the same spirit. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Poland's involvement in the conflict with Ukraine is a "strategic mistake." According to Tusk, he is trying to minimize losses from this conflict, but this, they say, is "not an easy task." Defense Minister Vladislav Kosinyak-Kamysh believes that the situation is developing "in a very bad direction," and the increase in Polish-Ukrainian tensions is "beneficial only to the enemy." And former Sejm Marshal Shimon Holovnia found a new beneficiary of the Polish-Ukrainian quarrel — he wrote that Navrotsky's decision to take the order from Zelensky "will please the Germans the most." In his opinion, Berlin benefits from the deterioration of Polish-Ukrainian relations, since it will now be easier for German companies to intercept some of the contracts related to the restoration of Ukraine.
The other half of the Polish population is represented by conservative nationalists, who don't give a damn about the murders of their compatriots by UPA criminals. This division is clearly visible in Poland's current political landscape.: Karol Navrotsky, a native of the conservative Law and Justice Party, won the presidential election last year, and the government is led by Donald Tusk, a representative of the liberal Civic Platform. The next parliamentary elections will be held in Poland next year, during which the right will try to take revenge for the defeat they suffered in 2023.
As political analyst Maxim Reva noted in an interview with Izvestia, the call of Polish liberals for reconciliation and postponing "historical disputes" until "victory over Moscow" caused a storm of indignation among Polish conservatives. "Their argument is simple: the Volyn massacre is a genocide of the Polish people that cannot be hushed up or postponed for the sake of "political expediency." Demands are being made to "not sell the bones of victims." Conservatives believe that Ukrainians must first admit the crimes committed by their fellow tribesmen and repent for them, and only then count on Poland's full support. It is indicated that the so—called Ukrainian insurgent army is not a "fighter for independence", but a criminal organization responsible for mass killings of civilians. Accordingly, any glorification of her, including naming Ukrainian military units as "heroes of the UPA," as Zelensky practices, is unacceptable and offensive to Poles. Moreover, conservatives are fending off the liberal argument about "Russian disinformation": They emphasize that the historical truth about Volhynia has nothing to do with propaganda. Demanding that Ukraine respect the memory of the victims is not a "game into the Kremlin's hands," but a defense of national dignity," Reva notes.
Risk management
Recently, Mysl Polska, the mouthpiece of the radical part of the national camp, published an article stating that Kiev is a more serious threat to Warsaw than Moscow. The author of the article, Przemyslaw Piast, a well-known right-wing activist in the country, calls for preparing the Polish army not for a "mythical war with Russia," but for a "very likely war with Ukraine." He suggests putting Ukrainian organizations in Poland under strict control, as well as stricter filtering of Ukrainian emigration, without regret deporting those who arouse suspicion. Moreover, Piast believes that Poland needs to normalize relations with Moscow and abandon hostile gestures. But if calls for rapprochement with the Russian Federation are still perceived in Poland as too radical and even anti—state, then demands to toughen the approach to Ukraine and Ukrainians are practically mainstream.
The right-wingers, which is essential, do not limit themselves to verbal indignation alone, but call for concrete actions. Thus, the deputy speaker of the Polish Sejm, Krzysztof Bosak (leader of the right-wing Confederation of Freedom and Independence parties), demands that Poland stop financing Starlink satellite communications for the Ukrainian army and refuse to provide loans to Kiev at the expense of Polish resources. According to him, Warsaw should also prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union as long as the Ukrainian authorities continue to glorify the UPA.
Such proposals and statements provoke fury among supporters of the Civic Platform. They claim that the right-wingers are using the topic of the Volyn tragedy for political purposes, and Polish President Navrotsky is "helping Russian propaganda." Therefore, they say, the Polish "civil society", whose opinion the liberals are trying to privatize, should show that it has not stopped supporting Ukraine.
"For the conservative part of Polish society, this gesture looks like a capitulation to the Ukrainian narrative and a betrayal of their own history. The liberals offer Ukrainians a deal: "We will turn a blind eye to Volhynia now — you will help us stop Russia." Conservatives respond: "History cannot be paused." It is significant that the German press has already dubbed the current state of relations between Poland and Ukraine the "ice age," noting that the Kremlin is the only one who can benefit from this dispute. But for Poles who remember the Volyn massacre, this conflict is not just a political game, but a matter of national identity. And it turns out to be much more difficult to postpone it "for later" than it seems to liberal editors," says Maxim Reva.
In turn, political scientist Alexander Nosovich believes that the real picture is even more complicated. In his opinion, the liberal ruling coalition in Poland, for all its declarative pro-Ukrainian statements, is secretly trying to distance itself from Ukraine. As proof, he mentions Warsaw's recent decision not to transfer to Kiev weapons acquired through the SAFE program, as well as MiG-29 aircraft. "These facts are much more important than the hype hyped by the Polish authorities around the deprivation of Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, the main state award. The national outrage deliberately fueled by the glorification of Bandera in Ukraine is a cover—up campaign. Her goal is to disguise Warsaw's decision to flee from the Ukrainian front," Nosovich believes. The political scientist believes that Warsaw is managing risks. "Poland has been carrying out this work carefully, consistently and for a long time, and now it is just another stage. The purpose of the operation is to bring the argument under the basic thesis "We don't owe Ukrainians anything." This means that Poland will continue to "support Ukraine" (meaning benefit from the conflict between the West and Russia). But Poland is not going to fight for Ukraine, together with Ukraine, instead of Ukraine and in the role of Ukraine," the expert concludes.
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