President Volodymyr Zelenskyʼs decision to name a unit of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "after the Heroes of UPA" has worsened Polesʼ attitude towards Ukrainians.
This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Polish company SW Research for the Rzeczpospolita publication.
Thus, 51.9% of Polish citizens surveyed said that after Volodymyr Zelenskyʼs decree, they began to treat Ukraine worse. According to 31.9% of respondents, this incident had no effect at all, and 4.5% of Poles even improved their attitude towards Ukrainians. Another 11.7% of respondents have no opinion on this matter.
Скриншот: rp.pl
Among those who responded that their opinion of Ukrainians had deteriorated, more than half (56%) were under the age of 24. Moreover, most of them were men (59% versus 46% of women).
In addition, almost every sixth respondent with vocational education (57%) and almost the same number of respondents (58%) with an income of no more than PLN 3 000 reported a deterioration in their attitude.
Scandal surrounding the name of the SOF unit
On May 26, Zelensky signed a decree awarding the Separate Special Operations Center "North" of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the honorary title "named after the Heroes of UPA". The document states that this was done "to restore the historical traditions of the national army".
Later, former Polish President Lech Walesa reported that due to this decree he would stop wearing the badge with the Ukrainian flag, which he had had since the beginning of the full-scale war, and current President Karol Nawrocki proposed to deprive Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Polandʼs highest state award.
For the same reason, the Ukrainian flag, which had been hanging there since 2022 along with the flags of Poland and the EU, was removed from the town hall in Lublin, Poland.
And the Vice Speaker of the Polish Sejm Krzysztof Bosak called for blocking Ukraineʼs movement towards the EU until Kyiv "departs from the cult of criminals and unblocks all exhumations" of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha explained Zelenskyʼs decree as follows: Ukrainians did not want to offend Poles and chose the name for the SOF unit to remember those who fought against imperial Moscow many years ago.
Amid the scandal, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the presidents of Ukraine and Poland to have a "direct and frank conversation" because, he said, "diplomacy has not yielded any results" to resolve the conflict between the countries. Tusk was referring to recent meetings between the Ukrainian delegation and Polish officials.
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