Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made a short but powerful point when reminding Poles that their government arms the followers of their ancestors’ killers in Volhynia. The immediate context concerned the FSB’s declassification of a document about how the NVKD eliminated one of the Volhynia Genocide’s organizers, but the larger context concerns the spiraling Polish-Ukrainian dispute caused by Zelensky’s state-level glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits.
Astute observers weren’t surprised by what he did since Ukraine has been glorifying those groups since shortly after early 2014’s “EuroMaidan” coup that Poland went along with despite being one of the guarantors of a newly clinched political de-escalation agreement literally just the day prior. Nevertheless, this information was strictly suppressed from the Polish discourse, with any mention of it resulting in one being smeared as a “Russian propagandist” and later a “Russian footwrap” (“ruska onuca”).
The Polish government, its Western allies, and “NGOs” colluded for around a decade to cover up post-“Maidan” Ukraine’s nationwide glorification of the Volhynia Genocide’s OUN-UPA culprits, which took the form of revising history books, renaming streets and squares, and building new monuments. Both halves of Poland’s ruling duopoly – the liberal “Civic Platform” (PO, now rebranded as “Civic Coalition” or KO) and conservative “Law & Justice” (PiS), KOPiS – are guilty of misleading their people about Ukraine.
They clinched a deal with the devil by allying with the same ideological forces responsible for the genocide of their own people during World War II because “they hate Russia more than they love Poland” per the unforgettable words of Roman Dmowski, the godfather of Polish nationalism. Confederation MP Krzysztof Tudoj paraphrased this criticism of his fellow politicians in May 2022 by quipping that “some people love Ukraine more than Poland” as was later proved by the ruling duopoly.
Both parts of KOPiS were Ukrainophilic till public opinion made that politically suicidal, but the conservative half was driven by anti-Russian sentiment and the liberal one by pro-German sentiment. Be that as it may, each naively assumed that Ukraine would restrain the anti–Polish manifestation of its national form of Nazism out of gratitude to Poland for donating its entire stockpile for use against Russia and the other forms of aid that it provided with no strings attached. That was an epic miscalculation.
They were drunk with Commonwealth nostalgia despite Ukrainians twice genociding Poles during Khmelnitsky’s Uprising in the mid-17th century and then the “Koliszczyzna” a century later. It’s possible that they even contemplated reviving the “Republic of Both Nations”, as the Commonwealth was also known as, in a modern form with Ukraine after the conflict ended. Some might have also perceived the Ukrainian Conflict as a modern-day Polish-Bolshevik War and that’s why they gave everything to Kiev.
Explanations aren’t excuses, and nothing exculpates KOPiS for misleading Poles about Ukraine so that they wouldn’t stop their government from arming the followers of their ancestors’ killers. Poland’s declassification of its Ukrainian arms donation list amidst the scandal over its reportedly secret transfer of Patriot missiles is expected to exacerbate anti-establishment sentiment ahead of fall 2027’s next Sejm elections. More Poles might also demand that Ukraine be fully cut off as the swiftest way to denazify it.
