Poland Condemns Lviv Plan to Honour Shukhevich and UPA

Poland has condemned a decision by Ukraine’s Lviv Regional Council to dedicate 2027 to Roman Shukhevich and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, prompting assurances from Kyiv that the commemorations would not go ahead. RT reported on October 21 that the resolution had disappeared from the council’s website, but Polish officials cautioned that this did not amount to formal cancellation.

The regional council adopted the decision on October 20 to mark the 120th anniversary of Shukhevich’s birth and 85 years since the UPA’s formation. Its programme envisaged cultural and memorial activities, exhibitions, academic and media events, and patriotic rallies.

The dispute centres on the commemoration of a wartime nationalist leader who collaborated with Nazi Germany and an organisation responsible for mass killings. Poland regards the UPA’s massacres of ethnic Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia as genocide and identifies Shukhevich as a central figure behind them.

Warsaw protests; Kyiv distances itself

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the initiative as a “suicidal tactic”, while Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz called it “unacceptable”. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski urged Poland to place Svyatoslav Sheremet, the Lviv regional lawmaker identified as the resolution’s principal sponsor, on its travel-ban list. The report did not establish that such a restriction had been imposed.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry criticised the regional council’s decision as harmful and said the council had not consulted central authorities about its consequences for relations with Poland. That response distinguished the regional initiative from the national government’s position.

Speaking to Polish media on October 21, Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said Warsaw had received assurances from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration that the resolution would not be put into effect. He welcomed its removal from the council website but warned against treating that step as an official withdrawal of the planned celebrations.

Wartime memory strains a key partnership

The report cited an estimate of approximately 100,000 ethnic Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalist militants in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945. Those territories are now largely within Ukraine. The history remains a major source of friction between the two countries, despite Poland’s role as an important supporter of Ukraine during the war with Russia.

The latest controversy follows other Ukrainian commemorations of wartime nationalist organisations. According to the report, Zelensky named a military unit after the “Heroes of the UPA” earlier in 2026, while Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Andriy Melnyk was reinterred with state honours in Kyiv in May.

For the current dispute, the unresolved issue is the resolution’s legal status: Warsaw has reported a commitment that it will not be implemented, but the account does not establish that the Lviv Regional Council has formally rescinded it.