Ukraine’s Azov Battalion just scandalously opened up an office of its “Veterans’ Corps” in Warsaw amidst the newfound political and societal tensions between these neighboring nations over Zelensky’s state-level glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits that Azov also glorifies. Kresy.pl drew attention to this, after which it was picked up by Do Rzeczy, where Marta Havryshko’s tweet about this was cited. She’s a US-based author and researcher focused on Ukrainian nationalism who wrote that:
“People associated with a milieu accused of glorifying OUN and UPA, responsible for the murder of Polish women and children; producing a ‘Volhynia Pride’ patch in the middle of an already toxic Polish-Ukrainian historical dispute; circulating ‘Greater Ukraine’ patches and maps that extend into present-day Polish territory; and praising the Waffen-SS Galicia Division — associated with the pacification of Huta Pieniacka and other Polish villages — will now have another place to raise money from Poles.”
Member of the Confederation libertarian-nationalist opposition party’s Leaders’ Council Paweł Usiądek reacted to this news in a detailed post pointing out how “Four Polish institutions are speaking with one voice: clusters of people with front-line experience pose a serious challenge to state security. At the same time, a foreign organization uniting such people is opening its first center in Europe in Poland’s capital. Question: where are the same services that warned about what’s happening right now?”
Separate from those four institutions’ warning was former President Andrzej Duda’s in early 2025 that Ukraine’s traumatized veterans could pose a threat. Poland’s “Project Trident” that began this spring aims to preemptively thwart the Ukrainian crime wave that’s expected to sweep through Poland once the ongoing conflict ends. Of relevance, “Ukraine Has Spent The Past Year Building A Case To Demand Reparations & Land From Poland”, and these same veterans could be weaponized in furtherance of that.
Grzegorz Braun, who leads Poland’s Confederation of the Polish Crown libertarian-nationalist opposition party, questioned “Why is a formation whose subunits use the emblems from of the SS supposed to deal with the resocialization of veterans from Ukraine on the territory of Poland?” Former Prime Minister Leszek Miller also drew attention to how Azov’s predecessors helped put down the Warsaw Uprising. He added that their commander was honored by the state in 2015 and has many streets named after him.
It’s already the case that “Polish Polarization Over Ukraine Is Likely The New Normal” per reputable polling, which also shows that the ruling liberal coalition is on track to lose power after fall 2027’s next Sejm elections, and both largely interconnected trends are expected to intensify due to this scandal. Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who unsuccessfully ran for president as part of the ruling coalition, should never have allowed Azov to open up their “Veterans’ Corps” in the Polish capital.
Apart from the conventional security risks associated with an anti-Polish Neo-Nazi group of traumatized veterans operating in Poland are the unconventional one related to them participating in a false flag. There are credible reasons to suspect that a major one is presently being prepared in Poland for manipulating the conservative president into escalating against Russia like the ruling liberals want. It therefore wouldn’t be surprising if Azov’s affiliates in the country play a role in any such provocation.
