European Pravda, citing the source, said Ukraine was grateful for Poland’s prior decisions regarding Ukrainian citizens and expected their rights to be respected no less than in other EU states.
But “any politicized decisions” equating Ukrainian symbols with Nazi and communist ones could “provoke negative sentiments” in Ukrainian society and “will require a response,” the source said, adding: “We are analyzing the legal dimension of the decisions being taken and their possible impact on Ukrainian citizens in Poland.”
Interfax-Ukraine reported similar comments, likely from the same source.
Nawrocki said on Monday he would introduce legislation to add a clear “stop banderyzmowi” (“stop Banderism”) provision and to equate the “Banderite symbol” in the criminal code with symbols associated with German National Socialism and Soviet communism. He also proposed amendments to the law governing the Institute of National Remembrance regarding crimes of OUN-UPA.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, former head of Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance and now a lawmaker, criticized the plan, saying he saw in it echoes of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s narrative.
He described “Banderite ideology” as three tenets — “you will gain the Ukrainian state or die fighting for it; freedom to nations, freedom to the individual; reliance on one’s own strength” — and wrote on Facebook: “Nawrocki sees in this a similarity to Nazism. And I see in his vision a similarity to Putin’s, who calls the destruction of everything Ukrainian ‘denazification.’”
Viatrovych led the institute from 2014 to 2019 and is a member of the opposition European Solidarity party of former President Petro Poroshenko.
Stepan Bandera remains a deeply divisive historical figure in Polish-Ukrainian relations. To most Ukrainians he is a hero who fought for their free country, while to Poles he is a criminal responsible for the murder of countless thousands of their compatriots and Jews.
The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, led by Bandera, was responsible for the so-called Volhynia Massacre, in which Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered around 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and neighbouring regions between 1943 and 1945.
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Source: PAP, RMF24