Polish parliament deputy speaker urges blocking Ukraine’s EU bid over UPA naming dispute
Poland should block Ukraine’s accession to the European Union until Kyiv “moves away from the cult of criminals,” Polish Deputy Speaker Krzysztof Bosak, a leader of the far-right Confederation party, said on RMF24.
He claimed Warsaw should oppose Ukraine’s entry into the EU until the Ukrainian authorities “move away from the cult of criminals and fully unblock all exhumations.”
According to Bosak, there is now “contempt for Polish politicians” in Ukraine, where, he claimed, Ukrainians see them as “weaklings” and believe that “this will not lead to any reaction.” He also called on Poland to refuse to participate in joint borrowing with other European countries to support Ukraine.
“This is probably the first such case I know from the history of international finance, when states that want to help each other, instead of providing a loan, go into debt themselves, provide unconditional and nonreturnable aid, and take on the burden of repaying the loan,” he said.
The deputy speaker also called for tougher steps against Ukraine. In particular, he suggested that the Polish government stop paying for Starlink satellite communications services used by the Ukrainian military.
“If we want to put real pressure on Ukraine, we need to move to more concrete gestures that will have an effective impact,” Bosak added.
Dispute over the ‘Heroes of the UPA’ unit name
On May 26, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree granting the Separate Northern Special Operations Center of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces the honorary name “in honor of the Heroes of the UPA.” The document said the goal was to “restore the historical traditions of the national military.”
The move drew criticism from former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa, who removed a Ukrainian flag badge from his chest and accused Zelenskyy of “honoring UPA bandits,” saying the decision had “insulted him and all his murdered compatriots.”
Former Polish ambassador to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki also returned the Order of Merit he had received from Zelenskyy in 2022 for the same reason.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that for Ukrainian soldiers, “the UPA’s struggle symbolizes resistance to Moscow’s imperial policy and is in no way directed against Poles.”
At the same time, Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau in the Polish president’s chancellery, said Zelenskyy should call Polish President Karol Nawrocki and apologize for giving the Special Operations Forces unit the “Heroes of the UPA” name.
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