Polish far-right calls for blocking Ukraine's EU accession over Heroes of Ukrainian Insurgent Army unit designation
Krzysztof Bosak, Deputy Speaker of the Polish Sejm and leader of the far-right Confederation party, has stated that Poland should block Ukraine's accession to the EU following the naming of a Special Operations Forces unit after the Heroes of the UPA. [UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a nationalist paramilitary organisation that fought for Ukrainian independence during and after World War II, primarily against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – ed.]
As reported by RMF24, in Bosak's view, Poland should first announce that it will block Ukraine's accession to the European Union until Kyiv "moves away from the cult of criminals and fully unblocks all exhumations" of victims of the Volyn tragedy. [The Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.]
His statement came in response to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decision to confer the honorary designation "named after the Heroes of the UPA" upon the Separate Special Operations Centre North of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Deputy Speaker of the Sejm stated that Poland must take stronger steps with regard to Ukraine.
"If we want to exert real pressure on Ukraine, we need to move towards more concrete gestures that will have an effective impact," he said.
Among other measures, the Confederation leader proposed that the government cease paying for the Starlink systems used by Ukrainian military personnel and withdraw from joint borrowing schemes for Ukraine with other European Union countries.
"Poland should withdraw from the previous decisions of the Morawiecki government regarding borrowing on Ukraine's behalf. This is probably the first such case I am aware of in the history of international finance, where states wishing to assist one another, instead of extending a loan, go into debt themselves, provide unconditional and non-repayable assistance and take on the burden of loan repayment," he added.
In his view, Poland's ruling parties have created a situation in which Ukraine is characterised by "contempt for Polish politicians."
"They are seen as weaklings. They believe that any provocation can be carried out. That it will meet with no response," Bosak said.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki will seek to strip Zelenskyy of Poland's highest honour following Zelenskyy's decision to name an elite Ukrainian Special Operations Forces unit after the Heroes of the UPA.
The head of the Polish President's Bureau of International Policy, Marcin Przydacz, stated that Zelenskyy should apologise to Nawrocki over the conferral of the UPA Heroes designation on the Ukrainian unit.
Amid the scandal, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that in initiating the honorary designation for their unit, the Special Operations Forces soldiers "certainly did not intend to offend the friendly Polish people."