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Dispute over nationalists: New dispute between Ukraine and Poland over underground army
In Lemberg, now Lviv, which used to belong to Poland, 2027 is to be celebrated as the Year of the Ukrainian Liberation Army. Poland reacts, as expected, with outrage. more...
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The regional council of the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv wants to declare 2027 the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Even the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry wants to stop this. And in Poland there are renewed protests and bilateral upheavals.
While the UPA and its fight against the Soviet Union are celebrated as heroism in many places in Ukraine, Poland accuses the underground army of carrying out massacres of up to 100,000 Poles and Jews in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943. Around 10,000 to 15,000 Ukrainians also died in Polish retaliatory actions.
Poland classifies the crimes as genocide and celebrates July 11th as a day of remembrance (“Bloody Sunday”), while in Ukraine the UPA is seen in some places as part of the fight for an independent Ukraine. Under the name Lemberg, Lviv belonged to the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary until the First World War and later to Poland. Due to the territorial shift after the Second World War, the USSR occupied the east of Poland and with it Lwów.
In this area, of all places, the Lviv Regional Council wants to celebrate 2027 as the year of the UPA. A majority of the local parliament voted for this. The occasion is the 120th birthday of UPA commander Roman Shukhevych, who was posthumously honored as a “Hero of Ukraine” in 2007. However, in addition to the underground fight against the Soviet Red Army, he also commanded ethnic cleansing against the Polish population.