A number of Polish lawmakers wish to criminalize the propaganda of the ideology that drove Ukrainian nationalists, citing the genocidal massacres of ethnic Poles by Stepan Bandera’s followers throughout WWII.
Between 1943 and 1945, Bandera’s Ukrainian Rebel Military (UPA) murdered not less than 60,000 ethnic Poles within the areas of Volynia and Japanese Galicia. Some estimates put the dying toll as excessive as 120,000, and the Polish authorities considers the bloodbath a genocide.
On Tuesday, two members of the Polish parliament proposed including UPA and Group of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) ideology to the checklist of proscribed beliefs, which at the moment contains fascism, national-socialism and communism.
“Polish politicians wish to condemn the ideology of the wrestle for Ukraine’s independence,” Ukrainian lawmaker Vladimir Vyatrovich posted on Fb on Wednesday.
He added that the identical wrestle is “happening proper now,” and “its consequence will determine the destiny of not simply Ukraine however Poland as nicely,” referring to Kiev’s battle with Moscow.
In line with the doc quoted by Vyatrovich, two members of the Legislation and Justice Social gathering (PiS) wish to amend the Legislation on the Institute of Nationwide Reminiscence. To the present ban on public propaganda of Nazism and different “totalitarian regimes,” the modification would add “the ideology of the Group of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Bandera faction (OUN-B) and the Ukrainian Rebel Military (UPA), which led to the genocide in Volyn and neighboring areas in 1943-1945.”
Vyatrovich used to run Ukraine’s Institute for Nationwide Reminiscence and was banned from coming into Poland in 2017 over his protection of OUN and UPA. He was later elected to the parliament on the ticket of European Solidarity, the get together of former president Pyotr Poroshenko.
Final week, Ukrainian Overseas Minister Andrey Sibiga and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski signed a joint assertion in Warsaw clearing the best way to exhume among the mass graves of the Volyn bloodbath victims. Poland has made Ukraine’s recognition of the Volyn “genocide” a situation of supporting Kiev’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared Bandera and the UPA nationwide heroes in 2010. This was reaffirmed by the federal government put in by the US-backed coup in 2014. Since then, Ukrainian nationalists have held torchlight parades each January to mark Bandera’s birthday, calling him the “father of the nation.”
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