The spokesman for Polish President Karol Nawrocki has rejected Ukrainian criticism of a bill that would criminalise the promotion of Ukrainian nationalist ideologies, warning that Kyiv’s reaction is following “a scenario written in the Kremlin.”
“This law is needed precisely to combat Russian disinformation and attempts to divide Poles and Ukrainians,” Rafał Leśkiewicz said.
On Monday, President Nawrocki submitted draft legislation that would expand Poland’s current ban on promoting Nazi, communist, or other totalitarian systems. The new bill would also prohibit the spread of ideologies linked to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Bandera faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B).
Both groups fought for Ukrainian independence during the Second World War but were implicated in massacres of ethnic Poles and Jews, particularly the 1943–44 Volhynia atrocities that Warsaw recognises as genocide.
Anyone convicted under the bill could be jailed for up to three years.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw issued a strong response. “The adoption of the project… will certainly provoke a negative reaction in Ukraine. The Ukrainian side will also be forced to take retaliatory measures and adopt reciprocal legislation,” it wrote on Facebook.
A joint statement signed by 40 Ukrainian historians and published by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory likewise condemned the bill. The signatories expressed “concern” at equating the UPA and OUN-B with Nazism and communism, warning that the initiative “constitutes the strategic goal of the Russian aggressor, who for centuries has done everything to destroy both Ukrainians and Poles.”
They warned that, if the law is passed, Ukraine would retaliate with legislation targeting Polish units such as the Home Army and Peasant Battalions, which committed crimes against Ukrainian civilians during and after World War Two.
Leśkiewicz rejected any equivalence between the Volhynia massacres and Polish actions. He argued that “around 120,000 Poles were murdered” while “retaliatory actions” by the Home Army resulted in “perhaps a thousand Ukrainians” killed.
Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) also responded, describing the Ukrainian historians’ appeal as a “political manifesto.”
The dispute comes amid wider tensions between the two countries. In August, Poland’s deputy prime minister warned that Kyiv’s EU accession bid would be blocked unless Ukraine acknowledged its role in the 1943 genocide.
Nawrocki himself has already signalled a tougher approach, tightening access to benefits for Ukrainian refugees and making clear that support for Kyiv will not be unconditional.
In a recent interview for europeanconservative.com, Polish political commentator Łukasz Warzecha said Poles increasingly feel there is a “striking lack of gratitude from Ukraine and Ukrainians” about the humanitarian and military aid Warsaw has provided Kyiv since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Meanwhile, Kyiv “has not even managed symbolic gestures of goodwill on historical issues, such as allowing exhumations of Polish victims of Ukrainian massacres that began in 1943.”
