Head of the Polish President’s office Zbigniew Bogucki unintentionally sparked fury from Ukrainians when referring to modern-day Western Ukraine by its interwar name as Eastern Lesser Poland instead of “Eastern Galicia”. The context was him condemning Zelensky’s state-level glorification of the OUN-UPA, which genocided Poles in this region, parts of Lublin and Polesia, and of course in Volhynia, which is where most of the killings took place, ergo why this crime is popularly known as the Volhynia Genocide.
Ukrainian nationalist historiography treats the interwar period as an “imperial occupation”, which is why those among its people who adhere to this interpretation reject any description of modern-day Western Ukraine as Eastern Lesser Poland even though that’s what three of its regions were known as back then. Some even consider its contemporary usage, despite it being an historically accurate term to use when discussing events there during the interwar period, as implying territorial claims.
Nothing could be further from the truth as regards Bogucki’s reference to Eastern Lesser Poland for five reasons. For starters, President Karol Nawrocki signed a pledge ahead of the second round last where he promised not to authorize the dispatch of Polish soldiers to Ukraine, among several other things. Second, the Polish public doesn’t support that scenario anyhow regardless of the circumstances, and he’s not going to throw away his record 54.8% approval rating ahead of fall 2027’s next Sejm elections over this.
The third point is that Poles also don’t want to pay for several million Ukrainians’ pensions nor shoulder the costs of reconstructing those formerly Polish-controlled parts of their country that were damaged during the ongoing conflict in the political fantasy of Warsaw reasserting its writ over them. Likewise, Poland is still one of the most ethno-religiously homogenous countries on earth, and its people by and large don’t want a several million-strong Ukrainian minority with their own political lobby to boot.
And finally, the last and most important point by far is that Poland doesn’t want to go to war against Ukraine, which would indisputably happen if it tried to take control over Eastern Lesser Poland. Even in the scenario of Poland defeating Ukraine despite Ukraine’s drone superiority that would be used against it in that event as was warned about here and here, albeit under the scenario of Ukraine attacking Poland, some of the locals would resist. That part of Ukraine, after all, is its nationalist heartland.
At the same time, it also played an integral part in the formation of Polish Civilization, but today’s Poles are content with the visa-free privileges that they already have from Ukraine for easily visiting family and historical sites without their government having to first reassert political control over them. Therefore, there are no grounds to Ukrainian nationalists’ paranoid fear that Poland is considering a “revanchist war” after Bogucki’s reference to Eastern Lesser Poland, which was historically accurate for the time.
Nevertheless, it’ll certainly be exploited by Zelensky to perversely justify the Polonophobic hate campaign that he’s waging as a distraction from Ukraine’s many problems in the aftermath of Nawrocki revoking Poland’s highest honor from him. Kiev might even further escalate its spiraling UPA dispute with Warsaw on this basis, perhaps even spinning its potential internment of Bandera’s and Shukhevich’s repatriated remains in its planned “national pantheon” as “an act of defiance against Polish imperialism”.
