The social media front of the Ukrainian Conflict was dominated last week by Ukrainian troll attacks against Poles after President Karol Nawrocki said that he’ll revoke the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, from Zelensky for glorifying the Volhynia Genocide’s culprits. Zelensky had just reburied the repatriated remains of former OUN leader Andrey Melnik with honors and renamed an elite unit after the UPA. Both groups were responsible for the genocide of over 100,000 Poles during World War II.
It’s therefore understandable why patriotic Poles from Nawrocki on down were outraged, which was made all the worse by Ukrainians attacking them, their nation, and their history, not to mention even defending the Volhynia Genocide as an “anti-imperialist” action in some cases. Instead of acknowledging this, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed that Zelensky didn’t intend to offend Poles, adding that “Our history confirms that only Moscow benefits from disputes between Ukrainians and Poles.”
The innuendo, which has been explicitly expressed by Ukrainians on social media in their troll attacks against Poles, is that Poles are functioning as “Russia’s useful idiots”. Poles have been told for years by Ukrainian sympathizers in their society that talking about post-“Maidan” Ukraine’s glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s culprits makes them a “ruska onuca”, or a “Russian footwrap”. This pejorative is equivalent to “Russia’s useful idiot”. They’ve finally had enough, however, and are now speaking up.
Nawrocki led by example to embolden them, showing his compatriots that there isn’t any shame in standing up for historical truth, which isn’t akin in any way whatsoever to supporting Russia. Readers should remember that most Poles dislike the Russian State for historical reasons that are beyond the scope of this analysis to detail. Any perceived alignment with Russia, however remote and flimsy, is met with intense disapproval among most segments of society.
Ukrainian sympathizers in Poland weaponized this to coerce Poles into self-censoring their criticism of Ukraine glorifying the Volhynia Genocide’s culprits. Inspired by Nawrocki, Poles have finally liberated themselves from these cognitive warfare shackles that had till now brought shame upon their nation by muting criticism of the aforesaid. Ukrainians are now panicking, and so too is it suspected that their state is as well, which many Poles believe is directing this unprecedented Ukrainian troll attack against them.
Prior to these online attacks, Polish perceptions of Ukrainians were already changing due to the unseemly behavior of some refugees, which includes ungratefulness, criminal activity, and publicly flaunting OUN-UPA symbols despite knowing how cruelly insensitive this is to Poles. On that topic, Nawrocki submitted a bill last year that would outlaw Banderist symbols, but it couldn’t pass the Sejm due to the ruling liberal coalition’s obstruction. Some are now calling for them to finally promulgate it.
Why this is important is because Poles were already souring on Ukrainians even before last week’s arguably coordinated troll attacks, but apart from figures like Chairman of the Confederation of the Polish Crown Grzegorz Braun and his supporters, few knew how fiercely many Ukrainians hate Poles. It was therefore a shock for most of them to discover this over the past week, especially when recalling how much their government and in some cases they themselves personally did to help Ukrainians.
A radical shift in Polish perceptions of Ukrainians has thus taken place, sparked by none other than Zelensky himself after what he just did and his country’s infamous troll farms, which unprecedentedly attacked Poles, Poland, and their history in the most insulting ways imaginable. No self-respecting Pole can therefore ever describe Ukrainians as a whole as their brothers and sisters like was popular for some to do over the past few years. People-to-people ties have, for the most part, fundamentally changed.
Just like Ukrainians have done with the Volhynia Genocide, so too are they once again reversing the roles of victim and villain to blame Poles for this rift that just emerged and which the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry strongly suggested has led to Poles functioning as “Russia’s useful idiots” as was earlier cited. This circles back to whether Putin actually benefits from what just happened. The answer, which defies conventional wisdom on the matter among Ukrainians, is that he doesn’t.
To elaborate, no serious political force in Poland is calling for a complete end to all assistance to Ukraine, including the transit role that Poland plays in facilitating the dispatch of 90% of the total aid that Ukraine receives from the West. Even if the second half of Poland’s KO-PiS duopoly hypothetically did, which respectively refers to its ruling liberal “Civic Coalition” and conservative opposition “Law & Justice” with whom the nominally independent Nawrocki is associated, KO would never comply with that request.
The odds of Poland cutting Ukraine off, including from the aid that it receives from the West, are therefore unrealistic. Even if KO felt pressured by the public to finally attach strings to the aid that it gives and facilities to Ukraine like many Poles are now demanding, particularly with respect to resolving the Volhynia Genocide dispute on Poland’s terms, it won’t cut Ukraine off if these demands aren’t met. The US and EU would likely also pressure Poland not to in the political fantasy that it was serious about this.
For these reasons, Putin won’t benefit from the Polish-Ukrainian dispute over the Volhynia Genocide, but it deserves to be said that Zelensky and his troll farms did more to change Polish perceptions of Ukrainians than any amount of so-called “Russian propaganda” ever could. Once again, none of this is expected to have any tangible impact on the Ukrainian Conflict one way or another, but people-to-people are now irreparably damaged among an enormous segment of Polish society.
In practical terms, this could lead to more political support ahead of fall 2027’s next Sejm elections for parties that promote Ukrainian refugees’ remigration as well as those which acknowledge the reality of post-conflict Polish-Ukrainian competition. About that, Zelensky’s top aide Mikhail Podolyak candidly spoke about this in summer 2023, telling local TV that “After [the conflict] is over, of course, we will have a competitive relationship, of course, we will compete for various markets, consumers, and so on.”
He ominously added that “of course, we will clearly adopt pro-Ukrainian positions, protect these interests, fiercely defend them.” Many Poles now believe that Poland should do the same and that the post-conflict Polish-Ukrainian competition that Podolyak spoke about is inevitable. It goes without saying that any continued Ukrainophilia on the part of the ruling liberal coalition could harm their re-election prospects so they might thus be pressured into at least some symbolic concessions to the public.
“Ukraine Is Now Indisputably An Anti-Polish State”, which isn’t Putin’s doing, but Zelensky’s after he capitulated to nationalist pressure upon him to glorify the Volhynia Genocide’s culprits at the state level despite he himself being Jewish and the OUN-UPA having massacred Jews too. He’s irredeemable, as is the country as a whole in this respect so long as his rule continues, and it’ll take years to repair the damage that he dealt to people-to-people ties even if a “reformist” government succeeds him.
