{"id":17394,"date":"2026-07-17T04:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T04:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/17394\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T04:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T04:46:12","slug":"poland-charges-ukrainian-with-vandalising-war-memorials-to-stir-ethnic-tensions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/17394\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland charges Ukrainian with vandalising war memorials to stir ethnic tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARSAW, July 16 (Reuters) – Poland has charged an 18-year-old Ukrainian man with inciting ethnic tensions by desecrating memorials to Poles \u200bkilled by Ukrainian nationalists during World War Two, \u200cthe Internal Security Agency (ABW) said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The so-called Volhynia massacres have been a source of tension between the countries for years.<\/p>\n

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The \u200bman, referred to as Illia K. under Polish \u200bprivacy laws, is charged with 47 criminal acts \u2060committed between November 2024 and August 2025, including the \u200bdesecration of memorial sites and preparation for sabotage activities \u200busing a drone.<\/p>\n

“The aim was to incite ethnic tensions between Poland and Ukraine,” ABW said in a statement, adding that it had \u200balso identified an online recruitment mechanism using cryptocurrency payments \u200bvia exchanges registered in Russia and China.<\/p>\n

Warsaw has frequently accused Moscow \u200cof \u2060conducting espionage and influence operations in Poland, allegations that Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, denies.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic relations between Warsaw and Kyiv entered their worst crisis in years after \u200bUkrainian President \u200bVolodymyr Zelenskiy decided \u2060to name an army unit after insurgents who massacred Poles in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

Some Ukrainians \u200bregard the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) as heroic \u200bfor \u2060the resistance it mounted against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as a symbol of Kyiv’s struggle for \u2060independence from \u200bMoscow. But the UPA was \u200balso involved in the mass killings of an estimated 100,000 Poles between \u200b1943 and 1945.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Andrei Khalip<\/p>\n

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