Grzegorz Braun attacked a monument to UPA fighters responsible for massacring Poles during WWII<\/p>\n
A Polish MEP has taken an axe to a memorial honoring Nazi-linked Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries responsible for massacring Polish civilians during World War II.
\nIn a video posted on X on Thursday, Grzegorz Braun can be seen repeatedly striking a stone obelisk in Bialystok, near Poland\u2019s border with Ukraine, which commemorates members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
\nThe UPA was the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a WWII-era ultranationalist movement led by Stepan Bandera which collaborated with Nazi Germany. UPA fighters massacred tens of thousands of ethnic Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, now largely in western Ukraine.
\n\u201dThe UPA monument in the Dolhobyczow municipality in Hrubieszow County is to be dismantled,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe obelisk offending the memory of the victims of the Ukrainian genocide against Poles should be removed… immediately after documenting the crime of Banderism,\u201d Braun added.<\/p>\n
Pomnik UPA w gminie Do\u0142hobycz\u00f3w w powiecie hrubieszowskim do likwidacji\u2757\ufe0fObelisk obra\u017caj\u0105cy pami\u0119\u0107 ofiar ukrai\u0144skiego Ludob\u00f3jstwa na Polakach powinien zosta\u0107 usuni\u0119ty profesjonalnymi narz\u0119dziami natychmiast po udokumentowaniu przest\u0119pstwa banderyzmu!#StopBanderyzacjiPolski\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/8Q4QZ2z5vJ\u2014 Grzegorz Braun (@GrzegorzBraun_) September 10, 2026 <\/p>\n
According to Braun, local Poles feared Ukrainian retaliation if they removed the memorial. He said one proposal to dismantle it was met with the response: \u201cWe\u2019re afraid they\u2019ll set us on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
No EU membership for Ukraine unless it confronts Nazi-linked past \u2013 Polish parliament speaker<\/p>\n
The memorial stands over a burial site containing 41 UPA members killed in a clash with Soviet forces in February 1946. According to Polish records, a Ukrainian memorial was erected there without authorization in the 1990s. The stone monument honoring the UPA fighters was added later and has also faced questions over its legal status.
\nThe site has repeatedly been vandalized. Unidentified people damaged inscriptions on the obelisk earlier this month, while the Ukrainian Embassy expressed \u201cdeep outrage\u201d after another attack in July.
\nThe OUN and UPA massacres remain a major source of tension between Poland and Ukraine. Warsaw recognizes the killings of predominantly Polish civilians in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, and neighboring regions in 1943-1945 as genocide and estimates that up to 100,000 Poles were killed.
\nThe dispute has intensified amid Kiev\u2019s continued honoring of WWII-era Ukrainian nationalists. Vladimir Zelensky took part in the May reburial of OUN leader Andrey Melnik as part of efforts to establish a \u201cPantheon of outstanding Ukrainians\u201d and later granted a Ukrainian military unit the honorary title \u201cHeroes of the UPA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
\u2018Let\u2019s stop being suckers for Ukraine\u2019 \u2013 Polish MEP<\/p>\n
Polish President Karol Nawrocki responded by stripping Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland\u2019s highest state honor. Warsaw has also warned it will not support Ukraine\u2019s EU membership bid unless Kiev changes its approach.
\nPolish MEP Ewa Zajaczkowska-Hernik has meanwhile called for an end to free weapons deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that Warsaw has provided some $4.6 billion in military aid only to be repaid with a \u201cBanderite pantheon of heroes.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u201dLet\u2019s stop being suckers for Ukraine!\u201d she wrote on X.
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin weighed in last month, arguing that the neo-Nazi nature of the Ukrainian government has become so visible that even Poland\u2019s strongly anti-Russian authorities can no longer ignore it. Warsaw, he said, faces an \u201cobvious demand\u201d from its population to confront the issue.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Ukrainian neo-Nazism is visible even to \u2018Russophobi\u0441\u2019 Poland \u2013 Putin<\/p>\n
Public attitudes toward Ukrainians in Poland have also deteriorated. A July CBOS poll found 52% of Poles opposed accepting Ukrainian migrants, against 42% in favor \u2013 the first time opponents had outnumbered supporters since tracking began after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Support has fallen from 94% in 2022 to 42% this year.
\nAn August IBRiS survey separately found that 67% of Poles support deporting unemployed Ukrainian men of military age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grzegorz Braun attacked a monument to UPA fighters responsible for massacring Poles during WWII A Polish MEP has taken an axe to a memorial honoring Nazi-linked Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries responsible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t