Ukraine considers the illegal replacement of the memorial plaque on the mass grave of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) soldiers in Poland as an act of vandalism and a deliberate provocation that plays into Russia’s hands, UNIAN reports.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army is a nationalist partisan force active during and after World War II. Still, its activity remains a deeply divisive issue between Ukraine and Poland, despite their close alliance against Russia since 2022. In Poland, the UPA is associated with the Volyn massacre and ethnic violence against Poles, officially recognized by the Polish parliament as genocide, while in Ukraine, the UPA is increasingly honored as a symbol of the struggle for independence.
UPA’s memorial plaque at the mass grave of 62 soldiers in Poland has been recently replaced. The new fake plaque read: “Mass grave of Ukrainians, members of the UPA, responsible for terror and genocide against defenseless Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish populations.” Polish law enforcement is currently investigating the incident to find the perpetrators.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi has addressed the issue, saying that Kyiv has conveyed its concern to Warsaw regarding such illegal actions. The individuals responsible have not yet been identified.
Tykhyi has noted that the goal of this provocation was to disrupt Ukrainian-Polish dialogue on historical memory.
“The more active this dialogue between Ukraine and Poland becomes, the more vigorously and openly we work to resolve problematic issues, the more attempts there will be to hinder this process. There are forces that are not interested in Ukraine and Poland resolving historical disputes,” he states.
He pointed out that this staged provocation with the plaque coincided with the beginning of exhumation work in Ukrainian territory.
“It’s clear that some people are not interested in a constructive dialogue. They want to provoke conflict between Ukraine and Poland,” he says.
According to him, the vandals’ intentions are clear in Ukraine and Poland. Furthermore, Tykhyi believes that such actions also impact Poland’s electoral process, which, he emphasized, should be kept free from political manipulation.
“I think these people are also trying to influence the electoral process with such actions, and that’s even more cynical, because this is about remembrance and honoring the memory,” the spokesperson adds.
Earlier, Ukraine started the exhumation of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy near the former village of Puzhnyky in Ukraine’s Ternopil Oblast.
The Volyn tragedy occurred in 1943 during Nazi occupation, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, with thousands of Ukrainians killed in retaliatory actions.
