{"id":792,"date":"2026-07-11T22:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T22:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=792"},"modified":"2026-07-11T22:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T22:24:17","slug":"polish-pm-pledges-memorial-to-victims-of-ww2-genocide-by-ukrainian-nationalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=792","title":{"rendered":"Polish PM pledges memorial to victims of WW2 &#8216;genocide by Ukrainian nationalists&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/50bb\/live\/5cc44ba0-7d50-11f1-926f-c90d1bcfbc84.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Polish PM pledges memorial to victims of WW2 &#8216;genocide by Ukrainian nationalists&#8217;\" title=\"Polish PM pledges memorial to victims of WW2 &#8216;genocide by Ukrainian nationalists&#8217;\" \/><\/div><p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced the creation of a national memorial to the victims of a &#8220;genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists&#8221; during World War Two.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tusk was speaking on the anniversary of what Poland calls the &#8220;massacre&#8221; in Volhynia &#8211; a Polish territory in German-occupied Poland now part of Ukraine and known as Volyn &#8211; in which it says some 100,000 ethnic Poles were killed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1943-45. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Many in Ukraine see the UPA as heroes who fought for independence from the Soviet Union as well as against Nazi Germany and Polish authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Warsaw and Kyiv have for decades been at odds over the events, in which up to 10,000 Ukrainian civilians are also estimated to have been killed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking on Saturday, Tusk said: &#8220;Truth is our duty toward the victims, but also a way to overcome a painful past for the sake of a better future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Memory cannot be the servant of hatred. The answer to nationalism cannot be more nationalism,&#8221; the Polish prime minister said, urging Ukraine to &#8220;embrace this truth&#8221; if the country wanted one day to join the European Union.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cr7xzg3dmj8o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">stripped of Poland&#8217;s highest state honour<\/a> over his decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after the UPA, amid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/clyrkze46p0o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">a diplomatic row<\/a> between the two countries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Polish President Karol Nawrocki said he had to act &#8211; but stressed that the row would not impact Poland&#8217;s support for Ukraine as it continues to fight against a full-scale Russian invasion launched in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Three former Ukrainian presidents later returned their White Eagle awards to Poland in solidarity with Zelensky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his video address late on Saturday, Zelensky said that &#8220;representatives of the Ukrainian state took part in joint prayers with representatives of the Polish state&#8221; in both countries to commemorate the victims of the Volyn killings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Ukraine is doing its part to honestly establish the facts about those killed in those years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We must not forget that now&#8230; Ukraine and Poland have one common threat, and this is a mortal threat to our independence, to our states, to every city, to every village, and this threat is called Russia,&#8221; the Ukrainian president said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced the creation of a national memorial to the victims of a &#8220;genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists&#8221; during World War Two. Tusk was speaking on the anniversary of what Poland calls the &#8220;massacre&#8221; in Volhynia &#8211; a Polish territory in German-occupied Poland now part of Ukraine and known as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/50bb\/live\/5cc44ba0-7d50-11f1-926f-c90d1bcfbc84.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1668,1665,1670,1664,1663,1669,1666,1667],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-genocide","tag-memorial","tag-nationalists","tag-pledges","tag-polish","tag-ukrainian","tag-victims","tag-ww2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}