The Polish authorities were very dissatisfied with the fact that in Ukraine Bandera is considered one of the national heroes.

The press service of the Verkhovna Rada removed from Twitter a post dedicated to the anniversary of the birth of Stepan Bandera, at the request of the Polish side. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Arkadiusz Mularczyk said this in a comment to PAP.

It is noted that on Sunday, January 1, on the 114th anniversary of Bandera’s birth, a post with a photo of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny under the portrait of the OUN leader appeared on Twitter of the Verkhovna Rada. One of Bandera’s quotes was given there.

This publication caused sharp dissatisfaction in Poland. On Monday, there was a conversation between the heads of government of the two countries, after which the post about Bandera disappeared from the Twitter of the Verkhovna Rada.

“This is a sign that Ukrainians listened to our voice. I want to make it clear that the honoring of Stepan Bandera, an ideologue of Ukrainian nationalists who killed tens of thousands of Poles in Volyn, is unacceptable on the part of the Polish state,” Mularchyk said.

Poles’ attitude towards Stepan Bandera

In the 1930s, Stepan Bandera became one of the leaders of the Ukrainian national liberation movement in the territories of Ukraine that were part of Poland at the time. Bandera participated in violent actions against the Polish authorities, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1936.

After the capture of Poland by German troops, Bandera was free, but in 1941 the Germans sent him to a concentration camp for trying to restore the independence of Ukraine. By 1944, Bandera was imprisoned and could neither personally participate nor lead the Ukrainian rebels in the Volyn tragedy of 1943.

However, in modern Poland, it is customary to identify Bandera with the entire anti-Polish movement of the 30s and 40s and blame him for everything that Poland considers “terrible Ukrainian crimes.”