Any good rational article explaining why Zelenskyy decided to use that name related to a Polish massacre? My understanding is that he can’t be picky with his allies in times of war so he made some honorific gift to the far-right to keep/get their support.
Because the unit fought both Nazis and Soviets to try to carve out an independent Ukraine. The attack on the poles wasn’t the “main” thing they did. It was also an insurgency unit not a regular unit so it’s hard to treat them as one thing. The only people who consider it the main thing are the Poles.
Here is the Polish deputy Science minister on the matter and probably one of the few rational voices in the debate
It was a unit that — regardless of what you say about the Volhynia massacre — fought for Ukraine’s independence,” Szeptycki said in a radio interview, and compared the UPA to Poland’s anti-communist guerrillas after the end of World War II.
The following paragraph from this Le Monde article seems to explain their reasoning:
Zelensky’s changing stance on these memory issues comes as the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has profoundly altered Ukrainians’ relationship with their history. The authorities are now working to create a national pantheon to honor multiple figures of Ukrainian nationalism spanning centuries. Zelensky thus finds himself in a delicate position, caught between the risk of not meeting the demands of a narrative centered on resisting Moscow and the international repercussions of such memory policies.
Nationalism is poison. They may feel at the moment it’s less dangerous than the Russian invasion but I am not so sure.
- On the evening of 19 June, Polish President Karol Nawrocki took the decision to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle in connection with the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He said Poland would not allow EU accession for those who do not understand the need to renounce the “cult of totalitarianism and violence”.
- Following this, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar, and Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Budanov announced that they would be returning the Polish state awards they had received.
- On 20 June, Zelenskyy said he had sent the order back to Nawrocki by post.
- Nawrocki explained that he had stripped Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle because Zelenskyy had crossed the Poles’ “pain threshold”.
- Former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko announced on 20 June that they were renouncing their Orders of the White Eagle.
I don’t like it at all.
I’ve read a short article about it but it seems that without relevant historical knowledge it’s hard to determine. My initial impression is that the Polish president is purposely making a spectacle of the issue and rage baiting his population, and that the main beneficiary is Putin.
Tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv have been high for days following Zelensky’s decision to name a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a World War II militia that Warsaw accuses of participating in massacres of Poles.
That’s better context.
Thank you for a little background. The story keeps going through the news cycle and I was unclear on what the fundamental problem was.
Think he’s gunning for some of that Orbán oligarch money?
