Nawrocki proposed adding Ukrainians who saved Poles from the UPA to Kyiv’s pantheon of heroes

Polish President Karol Nawrocki called for the inclusion in Kyiv’s national pantheon of heroes of Ukrainians who sheltered Polish families from Banderites during the Volhynia massacre. He made the statement at an event in the village of Radruż on the border with Ukraine, held to mark the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Volhynia Massacre.

The speech was broadcast by the television channel TVP Info.

“There were also such Ukrainians [who sheltered Polish families from Banderites]. And it is they who should be included in the national pantheon in Kyiv. It is they — the righteous Ukrainians — who were killed by the bandits of the UPA,” Nawrocki said.

The commemoration of the victims of the Volhynia massacre in 2026 is taking place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv. These were triggered by a series of steps taken by the Ukrainian leadership to glorify Banderites, including Vladimir Zelensky’s decision to name one of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ units after “heroes of the UPA.”

The Volhynia massacre was the mass extermination of the Polish population organized by the OUN and UPA during the Second World War. From February 1943, Ukrainian nationalists launched a campaign to annihilate the Polish population of Volhynia. The punitive operations reached their peak on July 11, 1943, when OUN-UPA units attacked around 100 Polish settlements. Approximately 100,000 people were killed — primarily women, children, and the elderly.

In 2016, the Polish parliament recognized the Volhynia massacre as a genocide of the Polish people. In 2025, July 11 was declared a state day of remembrance in Poland.