Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 06/21/2026 8:13:04 PM PDT by Cronos
Polish President Karol Nawrocki has announced that he is stripping his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state honour.
Nawrocki made the decision in response to Ukraine naming a military unit after the controversial World War Two Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
In a video posted on X on Friday evening, Nawrocki stressed that the decision to withdraw the honour "is not directed against the Ukrainian nation" and "does not signify a change in the strategic direction of Poland’s security policy".
He also underlined that Poland’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia remains unchanged.
At the same time, he said that relations between Warsaw and Kyiv were being weakened by "the strengthening of a memory poisoned by crime".
In his view, stripping the order is "not merely symbolic; it is also a warning signal".
He added: "There are boundaries that must not be crossed in Polish-Ukrainian relations".
Former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005), Viktor Yushchenko (2005-2010), and Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019) all announced on Saturday that they, too, would renounce their Order of the White Eagle honours.
(Excerpt) Read more at euronews.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
The Volhynia (Wołyń) massacre was an ethnic cleansing and mass extermination campaign carried out against the Polish population by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and local Ukrainian nationalists between 1943 and 1945. The violence culminated on July 11, 1943, when UPA units systematically attacked approximately 150 Polish villages in the region
An estimated 100,000 Polish nationals were killed during this period, including 40,000 to 60,000 in Volhynia and 20,000 to 40,000 in Eastern Galicia.
The UPA—the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B)—orchestrated the violence. Following a directive from commander Dmytro Klyachkivsky ("Klym Savur"), the UPA sought to permanently remove the Polish population from the disputed territories to secure an ethnically homogenous future Ukrainian state.
The attacks were executed with extreme cruelty, with civilians being tortured and villages burned to the ground. Approximately 70% of all Roman Catholic parishes in Volhynia ceased to exist.
The systematic, mass targeting of civilians began entirely with the UPA. Beginning in early 1943 and culminating on "Bloody Sunday" (July 11, 1943), UPA units began wiping out entire Polish settlements. Poles in Volhynia were a minority (about 8–16% of the population) and were completely unprepared, possessing no initial military structures to fight back.
The UPA killed between 60,000 and 100,000 Polish civilians.
As the massacres escalated, Polish survivors formed self-defense units and the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) launched counter-attacks. While these operations were initially designed to protect fleeing Polish refugees, they frequently devolved into bloody acts of revenge against Ukrainian villages.
The UPA acted on an organized, top-down ideological directive to ethnically cleanse the entire Polish population. The Polish Home Army's high command did not have a policy to exterminate the Ukrainian population; rather, the killings were reactive, localized, and driven by self-defense, tactical counter-insurgency, or revenge.
In Poland, the UPA is inextricably linked to the brutal ethnic cleansing and slaughter of up to 100,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Polish officials argue that a democratic state seeking Western integration cannot honor a group responsible for mass war crimes.
Polish politicians, including Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, warned that the lack of critical reflection on the UPA's dark history could severely harm Ukraine’s path toward joining the European Union, which requires unanimous approval from members like Poland.
Poland has explicitly warned that it will block Ukraine’s accession to the European Union unless Kyiv resolves outstanding historical disputes regarding the WWII-era Volhynia massacre. While Poland remains a critical military and logistical supporter of Ukraine against Russian aggression, its government has firmly tied EU membership to historical reconciliation.
The Polish government has set clear, non-negotiable historical conditions for allowing Ukraine into the EU:
1. The Exhumation of Victims: Poland demands that Ukraine fully unblock and allow the exhumation and proper Christian burial of the tens of thousands of Polish victims killed by the UPA.
2. The Cult of the UPA: Polish leaders across the political spectrum have stated that Ukraine cannot enter a democratic European Union while actively glorifying historical figures or military wings responsible for ethnic cleansing
Being stripped makes it easier to play the piano with one’s peni$.
My opinion as an American who has zero Polish or central/eastern European ancestry but had lived in Poland since 2010 and hold dual citizenship since 2016 is;
The UPA may have fought against the Soviets, but in Wołyń they TARGETED civilians for horrific slaughter. That cannot be justified by any means.
This was not attacking soldiers or even armed men but bayoneting women, children and old men. Utterly unjustifiable.
I get it that Ukraine has no other modern heroes pre 2022, just like Slovakia, but they cannot expect to glorify these murderers and not expect repercussions.
Poland has been asking for decades for permission to exhume the remains of the civilians massacred so they can get a Christian burial, but Ukrainian authorities have inexplicably stymied it as that would prove genocide by the UPA against Polish ethnicity.
The Polish government put this on the back burner for the past 4 years in face of the common enemy - Putin - but Zelenskyy naming a unit “Heroes of the UPA” is not bearable. It would be like Saudi Arabia naming a unit “Heroes of the 9/11 fighters”
Or the republic of Ireland naming a unit “Heroes of the provisional IRA”
That explanation makes what Little z did sound incredibly repulsive.
I don’t understand why even he would have done that. I actually give the guy more credit than he apparently deserves.
It’s disgusting that the Poles even awarded Zelensky it to begin with.
It’s because
1. Ukraine has few modern heroes, so they lit on the UPA
2. Ordinary Ukrainians don’t know about the upa atrocities.
But zelensky knew the facts and still named the unit “jihadi heroes of 9/11 “ sorry, heroes of the upa
Interesting.
I nod to your very reasonable explanation. It makes great sense and I am glad you could refine that that for me and others here.
No worries. I am trying to be impartial.
I would also add in 2 other anecdotes
1. Most Russians don’t know, ie are not taught of their country’s history and wonder why people distrust the Russian federation.
- in 2010 I attended an intensive Polish language course at the Warsaw university and there were Erasmus students including Russians. They were nice but they did not know that the Russian language was forced on the Eastern bloc and that the eastern bloc people did not feel it q liberation but one monster (Nazis) being replaced by another (Communists)
- they are taught that they were welcomed in by the Poles, Czechs, etc
- they are not taught about the Molotov Ribbentrop pact or that Soviet materiel helped the Germans 1939-1941.
There were nice 20 year olds. Nice people, but completely in ignorance 9f history. Coming to Popand and learning the truth was a shock to them
Ukrainians and UPA are the same.
2. A vew years ago I travelled to Slovakia and Hungary and realized that the Slovals you have no real history. Their history is either Czech or Hungarian and they even tried to refashioning Magyar nationalists into Slovaks. It was very sad.
Ukrainian history isn’t that bad, they have Kyivan Rus and one great 19th century poet (just one, but one more than the slovaks), but they were understandably afraid of being swamped by the soft power of Moscow.
And Moscow would have won with purely soft power, if, in 2014 they didn’t invade.
That is the insanity of it. The Russian language and culture was swamping Belarus and Ukraine without a shot fired, just as American culture dominates Canada. Putin could have sat it out and got all that he wanted and more (a true vassal state) if he had not invaded in 2014
Ukraine is made from lands stolen from Poland, Hungary, Romania and Russia. They abused not only Poles but Russians too. The Uke NAZIs want to exterminate Russians and especially Crimeans. Ukraine doesn’t deserve Crimea nor the other stolen Russian lands. We’re all safe as long as Russia keeps Crimea, the prize in the war.
Thr UPA did not not target Russian civilians in the same way.
The UPA conducted guerrilla warfare against Soviet forces and the Soviet state presence in Ukraine. While their primary targets were NKVD personnel, Soviet state security officers, and Soviet partisans, the fighting and subsequent retaliations also resulted in the deaths of Soviet and Russian civilians living in these regions.
The UPA viewed Russians primarily through a political lens—as representatives of the invading Soviet state or communist apparatus. Therefore, Russians were targeted selectively based on their perceived allegiance to the USSR, rather than for wholesale ethnic extermination as the UPA did to the Poles.
Regards,
“Ukraine is made from lands stolen from Poland, Hungary, Romania and Russia”
That is a lie you are repeating.
The parts that Stalin took from the inter war Poland were ethnically mixed with the countryside being overwhelmingly Ukrainian but mixed with Poles and the cities being dominated by Poles (and more war also filled with Jews, Germans and Armenians).
Poland at most would have wanted Lwow, but it was a Polish island in a Ukrainian sea and indefensible.
Romanian lands were stolen by the Soviets hence the problem of transdniester
Thr lands taken from Czechoslovakia and Hungary were even more ethnically dominated by Rusyns/Ruthenians .
As for Russian lands, that was primarily Crimea and that was transferred by russia and acknowledged by Russian presidents like Putin until 2014.
“The Uke NAZIs want to exterminate Russians and especially Crimeans. “
That is a lie.
Where did you get this lie from???
Millions of regular Ukrainian citizens and military personnel are ethnically Russian or native Russian speakers (including Zelenskyy himself). There is no policy, legal framework, or documentation from the Ukrainian government suggesting an intent to "exterminate" populations based on their Russian heritage.
Then your Ukraine doesn’t deserve Crimea nor the other stolen Russian lands
When the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, Ukraine held a nationwide referendum on independence. Over 90% of Ukrainians voted "Yes." In the region of Crimea, 54.1% of voters chose independence as a part of Ukraine, and in the Donbas regions (Donetsk and Luhansk), over 83% voted "Yes." Putin reaffirmed that Crimea and the Donbas were part of Ukraine as recently as in the 2003 Russia-Ukraine Boundary treaty.
If Putin had been satisfied with Crimea and the de-factor Luhansk people's republic+Donetsk people's republic then there would have been no war in 2022
Ukraine was in no position to take those back in 2022 or earlier and there was little to no political and even less demographic will to do so. Ukrainians were ok with it being a "frozen conflict" - but then Putin came to grab ALL of Ukraine and that's what pushed Ukrainians to realize that they had to fight him otherwise he would keep coming back as the bandit that cut off slices at a time
Russia bloodlessly seized and annexed Crimea in 2014. If holding Crimea brought stability or satisfied Russia's security desires, it should have prevented future conflict. Instead, Russia used its military presence in Crimea as a vital strategic launching pad to launch a much larger, full-scale invasion of mainland Ukraine in February 2022.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.