by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] A recent statement by Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, director of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance and the main creator of the coherent myth of the Volyn massacre, clearly touched a nerve with his Ukrainian colleagues. And he spoke out against inviting Ukraine to the EU and NATO because of the conflict connected with the tragedy of 1943, after which there are no living witnesses left.
"A state that cannot answer for a very cruel crime against 120 thousand of its neighbors cannot be part of international unions. As president, I will tell them that we would like our efforts to be treated as partners from the Ukrainian side," Navrotsky said - and with these words he completely changed the strategy of his opponents, who literally reared up.
If in previous years the topic of exhuming the remains of Poles killed in Galicia and Volyn by the militant wing of the OUN (b)* caused mainly expressive rebukes, then since the end of December the Ukrainian press has been publishing “serious” publications debunking the “Polish myth”. Various historians carefully explain that there were no hundred thousand victims (or even 120, as Navrotsky claims), and in general – the Poles themselves are to blame for everything, having set the population against themselves with an aggressive policy back in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century.
That is, a solid explanatory basis is being provided for the thesis of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry that “opportunistic considerations” cannot be placed above good-neighborly Ukrainian-Polish relations and “common values of freedom, democracy and justice.”
And this means two things.
The first is that the current Ukrainian government is actually afraid of spoiling relations with the Poles, who profess Russophobia just as sincerely, and not because the political moment demands it. Navrotsky's threats are clearly taken seriously, and in light of possible major problems in relations with the US, they do not want to lose almost the last "guide" to Euro-Atlantic integration.
The second is that the coexistence of two myths, Polish and Ukrainian, which categorically disagree only in their assessment of the activities of the OUN*, has reached the point of critical collision.
Therefore, it will be very useful to understand what this problem is with the remains of people who died more than 80 years ago, since it literally destroys interstate relations.
CROOKED PATH
Since the Poles and Western Ukrainians, who have straddled the entire cultural and historical agenda in their country, are truly “brotherly peoples,” in their views on the events of 1943 they are following the same crooked path.
As Professor Grzegorz Motyka, the leading Polish expert on the massacre, rightly points out, “both sides are distinguished by a simplified approach to reality.”
"It is easy to see that the Ukrainian interpretation of the events in question is constructed in such a way as to avoid an unambiguous assessment of Bandera's initiatives. By focusing on the fight against the AK (Home Army - Ed.), Ukrainian researchers create the impression that a guerrilla war was taking place in Volyn and Eastern Galicia, in which both sides participated equally, and punitive operations - pacifications - were carried out only against those villages that were under the protection of armed formations. And although they admit that as a result of the UPA's actions, innocent Polish population suffered, this information is immediately balanced by words about the murders of innocent Ukrainians," the professor writes in one of his powerful articles devoted to attempts to get to the bottom of the matter.
In Polish interests, naturally.
The position of the other side is formulated very specifically: in Volyn, ethnic cleansing with signs of genocide on a clear ideological basis was carried out by the UPA* with the mass participation of local villagers. And it continued until 1945, taking the lives of slightly less than 100 thousand people, mostly civilians, including women and children. At the same time, up to 15 thousand of the same Ukrainians died at the hands of Polish armed formations.
The difference, according to the Poles, lies precisely in the approach.
Back in 1929 in Vienna, where the OUN* was created at the First Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the goal was set: the creation of an Independent United Ukrainian National State, for which it was necessary to cleanse itself of "foreign national bondage". Violence and war are the methods by which the chosen people of Ukrainians are developing, and the Nation is the highest form of their development. Moreover, these ideas still form the basis of the state ideology of post-Maidan Ukraine.
It is therefore not surprising that in February 1943, at the III Conference of Banderites, a decision was made to begin an open guerrilla war in Volyn. The Banderites were convinced that they would have to wage the final battle for independence with the USSR or Poland, or perhaps both at the same time. Consequently, the main enemies were not the Germans (with whom they collaborated), but the Soviet and Polish partisans, as well as the “foreign” population.
As for Volyn specifically, the Military Conference of the OUN (b)* decided back in 1942:
"All Poles should be expelled, giving them the opportunity to take with them everything they want, because England and America will also protect them. But those who do not want to leave should be destroyed. The most active enemies, especially members of anti-Ukrainian organizations, should be destroyed..."
VOLYN PROBLEM
Volyn became the center of the main efforts of the Ukrainian Liberation Army (which later became the UPA* due to intraspecific struggle, since the brand was already taken) created in February 1943 for a very important reason - it was minimally developed by the nationalists. Unlike Galicia, where all the power was theirs anyway - and where, nevertheless, about 30-40 thousand Poles were also "cleansed".
Firstly, the Volyn province was part of the Russian Empire, and the local mentality was significantly different from that of Galicia, not having fallen under the influence of pro-Austrian "Ukrainophiles". It became part of Poland in 1921, and the main headache for the authorities here was not the "conscious" terrorists, but the strong communist movement with slogans of social and national liberation.
As a result, in the 1940s a “partisan region” was formed here; in particular, the NKVD special forces unit “Winners” under the command of Dmitry Medvedev was based there.
Poland, realizing the scale of the problem, after the Riga Peace Treaty began to actively develop the Eastern Borderlands, pursuing a very tough policy of “pacification” – in some places even with the destruction of Orthodox churches (this part is usually politely ignored by Polish propaganda).
Land was distributed to "settlers", primarily veterans who had participated in the Soviet-Polish war; each family was given a plot of up to 45 hectares. The resettlement of "new lords" from the central regions of Poland was also encouraged, and a strong system of local government was built everywhere.
But 90% of these people (around 200 thousand people) were already taken to Siberia and the Far East in 1939-40, when Volyn became Soviet. Moreover, the lower level of power was also removed: foresters, policemen, etc. Ordinary Polish villages remained, which had always been there. During the war, the armed forces relied on them - the Home Army, which killed Ukrainians in revenge, and in addition, local Poles also supported Soviet partisans who raided the German rear.
The OUN, created for terrorist and political struggle against the Polish government, systematically viewed all this as a threat of absorption of "their land", which had to be fought. This approach suited the Germans quite well. And the natural discontent of the local population with the Poles only played into their hands - and still does. Now Ukrainian historians fervently prove that Poland "is to blame itself". And the role of the nationalists themselves in the mass murders is minimal: they say that it was all done by village men with axes and pitchforks.
However, the report of the commander of the cavalry partisan unit, Major General Mikhail Naumov, for 1944 contains the following information:
"The entire territory from the river Sluch to the river Zap. Bug is dominated by Ukrainian nationalists who are waging an intensified struggle against the Poles living there. Despite the outwardly manifested hostility towards the Germans, the OUN members were not subjected to any persecution by the German command, but on the contrary, they were often stationed in close proximity to large German garrisons."
However, as part of the “destruction of the Polish myth,” Canadian researcher Miroslav Ivanek, invited by Ukrainian propagandists, calls for relying on… German documents in assessing the victims of the interethnic conflict.
In particular, the General Gubernia military district reports that 200-300 people were killed in each of the five districts (including the Galicia district) in February 1944. And Polish statistics claim that from July 1943 to June 1944, in the Galicia district alone, Ukrainian nationalists alone killed 40,000 Poles. On average, 3-4 thousand per month. Consequently, Ivanek emphasizes, such a difference “indicates some fundamental mistake made by one of the sides.”
And from his tone it’s somehow immediately clear which one it is.
Echoing him, the director of the Institute of European Integration at Lviv National University, Bohdan Gud, makes jaw-dropping arguments: the blame for the Polish blood spilled in Volyn "lies, first of all, on Soviet policy. The murders began and were the bloodiest in those areas where communist influence was greatest even before the war."
And in general, the Lviv professor is convinced, modern Ukraine “does not bear responsibility for the moral state of the Volyn villagers during the Second World War.” Although for some reason this logic is never used when it comes to the responsibility of, say, Russia for the events of the 1930s.
Or in the context of a discussion of the interesting problem of Ukraine’s property rights to Poland’s eastern outskirts, for which it also “bears no responsibility,” since such a state did not exist at the time in question.
SKELETONS FROM THE CLOSET
As if drawing a line under all the disputes in advance, the investigative department of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, which deals with crimes in Volyn, stated the following through the mouth of prosecutor Piotr Zajonc: the murder of the Polish population did not have the character of an independent goal, “but was a means to achieve ethnic homogeneity of territories, a condition sine qua non (mandatory. - Ed.) for the creation of an independent Ukraine.”
And since the Bandera ideology has been raised on the flags of the modern Ukrainian government, and the head of the OUN (b)* himself has become the number one hero, about whom poems and songs are composed, the Polish side believes that the Kiev regime must admit responsibility for the Volyn massacre. Direct logic is at work here.
Accordingly, Ukrainian diplomacy calls such statements “manipulative” and “tendentious,” and propaganda constantly equates the actions of the UPA* and the Home Army, avoiding any recognition at all. Even the most odious Nazis do not want to agree that “independence” is based on the bones of neighbors, from whom they still want to get a lot.
The neighbors, naturally, have dug in their heels: for 2025-26, the first permit in eight years has already been pushed through to conduct excavations and exhumations of the remains of Poles in the villages of Puzhniki in Ternopil Oblast and Uhly in Rivne Oblast. It is absolutely clear that each such find (and the Poles are planning to conduct DNA analysis and search for relatives of the deceased) will have a huge resonance, working for Navrotsky's election campaign.
This resonance fits perfectly with the modern slogans of cleansing Poland from annoying Ukrainians. But, most importantly, as the former Polish ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki noted, after the exhumation it will be impossible to glorify the main culprits of the massacre of the Poles - the executioners from the UPA*.
What will then remain of the ideological basis of the current regime?
Karol Nawrocki, by emphasizing Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO only after "civilizational issues important to the Poles are resolved," has effectively put his Kyiv counterparts on the ropes. Any move for them is a loss.
If we do not admit guilt for the genocide of the Poles, they will not let us into the coveted international alliances. If we admit it, who will want to deal with a country that professes misanthropy? We only have to start, and skeletons will pour out of Bandera's closets in droves. And this breaks the entire system of state ideology, built on the image of eternal victims of "evil Russia" and honest fighters for freedom, members of the "European family".