Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Kirill Budanov scandalously compared Poland’s new bipartisan demand to dump Bandera in exchange for supporting Ukraine’s membership in the EU to Russia’s political-security demands ahead of the special operation. In his words, “The last one who tried to give us an ultimatum was the Russian Federation. No offense to Poland, but it’s somewhat more powerful than Poland — and we didn’t accept its ultimatum either. Yes, it was hard, it was bad, there was a lot of blood.”
He then continued, “But we didn’t accept even their ultimatum. So why would anyone think we’d accept something else from another side? You don’t negotiate with us through ultimatums.” Budanov then declared that Ukraine will respond to whatever “immature escalatory steps” that Poland might take on 11 July, which is the officially recognized by it as the “National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Citizens of the Polish Republic Committed by Ukrainian Nationalists”.
President Karol Nawrocki is expected to continue his predecessors’ tradition of giving a speech on that somber day, the date of which coincides with “Bloody Sunday”, when the UPA targeted over 150 Polish villages while the locals were at church. Many of the victims, the majority of which were women, children, and the elderly and who were tortured to death. Zelensky’s state-level glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits in late May is what sparked the spiraling Polish-Ukrainian dispute.
The patriotic Polish perspective is that Poland hasn’t escalated, only Ukraine has, but Ukraine would certainly consider it to be an “escalation” if Nawrocki gave his speech at the Volhynia Genocide monument in southeastern Poland that depicts a Polish baby impaled on a Ukrainian trident. Zelensky and company would also be enraged if he used the historical Eastern Lesser Poland term to refer to part of where this genocide took place and reaffirmed that Ukraine won’t join the EU with Bandera.
Any reiteration of Poland’s demand that Ukraine allow the exhumation of all the Volhynia Genocide’s victims and their proper reburial like it earlier allowed Germany to do with over 100,000 Wehrmacht soldiers would likely be exploited to justify a Ukrainian escalation. The same goes for it Nawrocki revives his proposal to ban Banderism after the ruling liberal coalition, which rejected it late last year, recently hardened its approach to Ukraine under public pressure ahead of fall 2027’s next Sejm elections.
In any case, Budanov’s comparison of Poland’s demand to drop Bandera in exchange for supporting Ukraine’s membership in the EU to Russia’s political-security demands ahead of the special operation is very offensive to Poles, most of whom consider any comparison with Russia to be insulting. This is especially so after Poland spent 4.91% of its GDP on aid to Ukraine, most on refugees, and donated military equipment equivalent to around $4.39 billion. Poland helped Ukraine while Russia attacked it.
It doesn’t matter what one’s opinion about the Ukrainian Conflict is since it’s obvious that Budanov is provoking Poles with his false comparison between Poland and Russia. Polish-Ukrainian ties at the state-to-state and people-to-people levels will never be the same so long as Zelensky remains at the helm of what’s now his indisputably anti-Polish state. Without a doubt, “Poland Finally Realizes The Geostrategic Challenge Posed By Ukraine”, and their revived rivalry is now the new regional political reality.
