New Poland-Ukraine dispute looms as local authorities move to honor UPA military leader

Warsaw has denounced Lviv Oblast authorities' plans to honor the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its military leader, Roman Shukhevych.

The move signals a fresh rift in the already strained Kyiv-Warsaw ties just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky said the relations had finally improved.

The council of the western Ukrainian region adopted decrees on Oct. 20 symbolically declaring 2027 as the Year of the UPA, the Year of Shukhevych, and the Year of Oleh Olzhych, a Ukrainian poet and political activist.

Poland’s charge d'affaires in Kyiv, Piotr Lukasiewicz, immediately reacted by saying that "glorifying the UPA and criminal figures runs counter to European values and the strategic and neighborly relations between Ukraine and Poland." Poland’s defense and foreign ministries also decried the decision, saying it "does not build mutual trust."

The episode marks another chapter in the Ukrainian-Polish dispute over the legacy of the UPA, a resistance organization that fought for Ukrainian independence from Soviet rule.

In Poland, the group is primarily remembered for its role in the 1943-1945 Volyn massacres — killings of tens of thousands of Poles in what is today western Ukraine, then under Nazi occupation.

Thousands of Ukrainians were killed in retaliatory attacks, making the massacres one of the most painful chapters in the two nations' shared history.

Shukhevych was a Ukrainian nationalist and the supreme commander of the UPA from 1943 until his death during a gunfight with Soviet security forces near Lviv in 1950.

As Warsaw sharply denounced the Lviv Oblast authorities' decision, the government in Kyiv moved to distance itself from the step to avoid derailing the restoration of ties with its western neighbor.

"The recent decision by the Lviv Oblast Council... is counterproductive to our current efforts to further develop Ukrainian-Polish relations and resolve contentious issues amid Russia's full-scale aggression," Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement shared with journalists.

Contentious shared history

Shukhevych’s legacy remains deeply contentious in Ukrainian-Polish relations, with historians in both countries offering differing views on it.

The UPA was established in 1942 as a military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists — specifically, the faction led by Stepan Bandera, OUN-B. Shukhevych officially assumed the leadership of the UPA in November 1943, several months after the start of the initial wave of the Volyn massacres.

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance has named Shukhevych "an architect" of the Volyn massacres and "co-founder of collaborationist units operating alongside Germany." Shukhevych was one of the commanders of the Nachtigall Battalion — a short-lived unit staffed by Ukrainians and organized by German military intelligence — in 1941.

In 1941, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the OUN-B leadership hoped Berlin would tolerate a Ukrainian state and proclaimed one in Lviv. Germany rejected it, arrested Bandera and other leaders, and cracked down on the organization.

Many Ukrainian historians debate the extent of Shukhevych's personal role in the Volyn massacres and point out that under Shukhevych's command, the UPA fought both Soviet and Nazi forces.

"Some Ukrainian historians have suggested that the order of ethnic cleansing in Volyn did not come directly from Shukhevych, but was an initiative of the local UPA leadership," Myroslav Shkandrij, a professor at the University of Manitoba, told the Kyiv Independent.

"The problem, however, is that Shukhevych has become a symbol, and symbols, whether they represent heroism or villainy, are resistant to facts."

Kyiv and Warsaw also hold different perspectives on the Volyn massacres themselves.

The Polish parliament recognized the killings as a genocide against Poles committed by Ukrainian nationalists, while Kyiv views them as a two-sided tragedy.

Olesia Isaiuk, a historian at the Center for Research on the Liberation Movement, a Ukrainian research institution, frames the Volyn massacres as part of a broader Polish-Ukrainian conflict, stretching back to the Ukrainian war of independence in the wake of World War I.

"For the Ukrainian side, the Volyn event is… one of the biggest and most tragic parts of the continued Ukrainian-Polish conflict… And Roman Shukhevych is a national hero for Ukrainians because he fought against the Nazis and the Soviets," Isaiuk told the Kyiv Independent.

But as Skhandrij notes, real history often evades easy classification.

"The histories of the OUN, UPA, and Shukhevych are complex. They include both heroic and shameful episodes," he says.

"It is not easy to tell the whole truth in a simple narrative, and even more so during wartime."

Tense year for Ukraine-Poland relations

The Polish envoy in Kyiv noted that while the leaders in Kyiv and Warsaw made progress on resolving historical issues, "irresponsible local officials are meanwhile undermining the relations we have worked to build."

Earlier this year, tensions erupted between the two countries when Zelensky conferred a title on a military unit in honor of the UPA.

In response, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of Poland's highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle, awarded by his predecessor.

After a period of tensions, Zelensky said on Oct. 18 that bilateral relations had finally improved. The latest episode risks reversing that progress.

"Such a decision does not build mutual trust between nations but strengthens divisions. It is necessary for the Ukrainian authorities to distance themselves from this position," Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Oct. 20.

Ukraine's foreign ministry has done just that, sharing a statement that criticized the Lviv Council decision as “counterproductive to our current efforts to further develop Ukrainian-Polish relations and resolve contentious issues.”

The ministry stressed that the decision was taken at the regional level by council members who did not consult the foreign ministry or the central government.

"At the same time, we call on the Polish side to refrain from rash steps that could undermine the normalization of our relations."

The proposals on the UPA, Shukhevych, and Olzhych were put forward by the head of the regional council's cultural committee, Sviatoslav Sheremeta.

"This is our history, our heroes, and we must duly honor their memory. I thank the councilors for their support," Sheremeta said, according to the local outlet Sokal Voice.

In response, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Oct. 21 that he had requested that Sheremeta be placed on Poland's list of undesirable persons, potentially barring him from the entire Schengen area for five years.

The developments also come a year before Poland's parliamentary elections, in which the coalition led by centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk faces a growing challenge from right-wing and far-right parties.

Historical grievances play an increasingly important role in Polish public debate ahead of the elections, with right-wing forces adopting a tougher line on Ukraine.

And it also arrives at a critical time for Kyiv.

"Additional foreign policy challenges are the last thing Ukraine needs today," says Sergiy Solodkyy, director of the New Europe Center think tank in Kyiv.

"At a time when Kyiv is engaged in a difficult dialogue with the United States and European support is becoming even more critical, Ukrainians have a particular interest in preserving a spirit of partnership with all EU member states," he told the Kyiv Independent.

As Ukraine's relations with neighbors were finally beginning to move in a positive direction, "opening another dispute would clearly run counter to Ukraine’s strategic interests," the expert said.

And Zelensky's deputy chief of staff, Iryna Vereshchuk, warned: "The only winner from the tension in Ukraine-Poland relations is Russia."