![\"Ukrainian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/429fb2ae1c3dbe8611634130419deebc.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nVolodymyr Zelensky\u2019s decree renaming a Ukrainian unit after a group from the Second World War has sparked a bitter row between Kyiv and Warsaw.<\/p>\n
The unit, called the Separate Special Operations Center North, would become the \u201cHeroes of the UPA\u201d after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that fought in the Second World War, the Ukrainian president announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On May 19, Kyiv also repatriated the corpse of Andriy Melnyk, a leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the umbrella group that established the UPA military unit.<\/p>\n
However, these moves have caused a dispute rooted in the history of the bloodlands of Europe, darkening Polish-Ukrainian relations and playing into Russia\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
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In May, Kyiv exhumed the remains of Andriy Melnyk, the leader of the group that formed the UPA – Genya Savilov\/AFP<\/p>\n
To Ukrainians, members of the UPA were heroes who fought for independence against Soviet forces.<\/p>\n
But to those in Poland \u2013 a key ally of Ukraine as it fights off Russia\u2019s invasion \u2013 it is known for briefly allying with Nazi Germany against the Soviets and committing massacres against ethnic Poles in the Volhynia and Galicia regions in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The partisans killed up to 100,000 Polish civilians and exhumations were only recently allowed.<\/p>\n
Karol Nawrocki, the Polish president, said he would ask for Mr Zelensky to be stripped of Poland\u2019s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, for repatriating Melnyk\u2019s remains and posing by his grave.<\/p>\n
Donald Tusk, Poland\u2019s prime minister, said Mr Zelensky\u2019s move \u201cwounds our historical sensitivity\u201d and is \u201cworrying from the point of view of our relations<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Donald Tusk has called for Ukrainians to think of what \u2018the grim legacy of the UPA means from the perspective of every Pole\u2019 – Radek Pietruszka\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Lech Walesa, a Polish Nobel Peace Prize-winner who was instrumental in the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, said he had decided to stop wearing a Ukrainian flag lapel pin.<\/p>\n \u201cBy honouring the bandits of the UPA, the president of Ukraine has insulted me and all our massacred compatriots,\u201d Walesa said on Facebook.<\/p>\n Mr Zelensky received the Order of the White Eagle in 2023 from Andrzej Duda, Mr Nawrocki\u2019s predecessor. The honour was seen as a sign of reconciliation in the face of a shared threat<\/a> from Vladimir Putin after the invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n But Mr Nawrocki, a nationalist historian who headed Poland\u2019s Institute of National Remembrance before winning the presidency last year, said the move showed that the Ukrainian mentality towards history meant the country \u201cis not ready to be part of the European family\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot glorify bandits who murdered women and children,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cGlorifying the UPA has provided Russian propaganda with ample oxygen for disinformation,\u201d he told reporters in Warsaw on Friday, as Russian propaganda frequently refers to the UPA to portray Ukraine as a Nazi state.<\/p>\n Ukrainian nationalists, though, revere the UPA for fighting for an independent Ukrainian state against Soviet forces.<\/p>\n In Lviv, a heartland of Ukrainian nationalism, the red and black flag frequently flies, with the face of Stepan Bandera, an ultranationalist militia leader during the 20th century, for sale on scarves in flea markets and referred to as \u201cDaddy Bandera\u201d in design shops.<\/p>\n Ukrainian nationlists still revere far-Right figures from the 20th century, such as Stepan Bandera<\/p>\n Mr Zelensky said he had renamed the unit \u201cin order to restore the historical traditions of the national army\u201d as well as to \u201ctake into account the exemplary performance of the tasks entrusted during the defence of Ukraine\u2019s territorial sovereignty\u201d.<\/p>\n There is a strong nationalist element within the armed forces, with semi-official militia groups such as the Azov Battalion and Right Sector often using far-Right nationalist symbolism as they fight against Russia.<\/p>\n![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b932bc1b627f584c4ced40def70c7cec.jpeg\"\/)
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