Paweł Jabłoński, a Law and Justice (PiS) MP and former deputy foreign minister, said the law "directly glorifies" the UPA, one of the most contentious subjects in Polish-Ukrainian relations because of its role in WWII massacres of Polish civilians.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted the law on Wednesday. The bill was submitted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky several days earlier.
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, said the new National Pantheon would honor "the best sons and daughters of the Ukrainian nation."
'An unfriendly act'
Jabłoński said Article 5 of the law contained a reference to the UPA. He described it as "something that, from the point of view of bilateral relations, should be regarded as an unfriendly act."
"This is a specific kind of step that the Ukrainian state has taken toward the Polish state,” Jabłoński told Poland's PAP news agency. "The Polish state should retaliate," he added.
Under the law, Ukraine’s National Pantheon may honor historical heads of state and equivalent figures from earlier Ukrainian state formations. It may also honor presidents of Ukraine, except those removed from office through impeachment.
The law also allows the pantheon to commemorate commanders and equivalent figures in the armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Carpathian Sich national defense organization and the UPA.
The issue has added to tensions already stirred by Zelensky’s decision in late May to name a Ukrainian military unit after the "Heroes of the UPA."
Zelensky said at the time that the move was intended to restore "the historical traditions of the national army" and reflected the unit’s performance in defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence.
That decision drew criticism in Poland from President Karol Nawrocki, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.
On June 19, Nawrocki said he had decided to strip Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state decoration. Zelensky returned the order to Warsaw the next day.
The UPA is viewed in Poland mainly through the lens of the Volhynia massacres. Polish historians say UPA units in July 1943 carried out coordinated attacks on about 150 Polish-inhabited towns and villages in the Volhynia region of what was then German-occupied Poland.
Poland regards the killings as genocide.
Meanwhile, many Ukrainian historians and politicians interpret the events as part of a broader Polish-Ukrainian wartime conflict. In Ukrainian historical memory, the UPA is often seen as a symbol of the struggle for independence and postwar resistance against the Soviet Union.
Zelensky announced plans for the pantheon during Ukraine’s Constitution Day celebrations on Sunday.
"No one will ever order us how to live, how to speak, whom to love, whom to be grateful to and which heroes to respect," he said.
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Source: IAR, PAP