Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being called to apologise for the killing of thousands of Poles at the hands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the Second World War is “unacceptable”, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, said following comments from Poland’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Łukasz Jasina.
Referring to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the tragedy in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, Jasina told Onet that historical disagreements between Poland and Ukraine should be solved, preferably with Zelenskyy apologising to Poland for UPA murdering thousands of Poles during the Second World War.
“Any attempts to impose on the President of Ukraine or the Ukrainian state what we have to do regarding our common past are unacceptable and unfortunate,” Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Zvarych responded on Twitter Saturday.
He added that Ukraine remembers the common history and is ready for dialogue and mutual understanding but “calls for respect and balance in statements, especially given the complex reality of the genocidal Russian aggression against the Ukrainian people.”
The following day, Zvarych softened his message and deleted the post, explaining that he found Jasina’s proposals “inappropriate” regarding Ukraine-Poland relations.
Still, the ambassador said he wants Kyiv to cooperate with Warsaw on historical matters while understanding its significance and respecting the victims. “Stronger together,” the ambassador concluded, adding emojis with Polish and Ukrainian flags.
Between 1943 and 1945, UPA led an ethnic cleansing operation in Ukrainian-majority areas of Volhynia and Galicia that had been part of the pre-war Polish state – resulting in the deaths of 50,000 to 100,000 Poles, including women and children.
The “Volhynian massacre,” as it is often called in Poland, continues to be a bone of contention between Warsaw and Kyiv.
Still, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki expressed hope that the Russian invasion of Ukraine offered an opportunity to achieve reconciliation over the massacres. Zelenskyy reportedly promised him that Ukraine would permit the exhumation of victims.
At the start of the year, Poland condemned Ukraine’s commemoration of war-time nationalist leader Stepan Bandera – a man Ukraine’s former ambassador to Germany said was “not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles”.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
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