Poland has added Sviatoslav Sheremeta, a deputy of the Lviv Regional Council who initiated a decision concerning the UPA and Roman Shukhevych, to its list of undesirable persons.
This was reported by Poland’s Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński, noting that the decision was taken following a submission by Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.
Sheremeta has been banned from entering and staying in Schengen Area countries for five years — until 20 October 2031.
The ban came after, on 20 October, the Lviv Regional Council adopted a decision to proclaim 2027 the Year of Shukhevych, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and Oleh Olzhych.
Sheremeta was the initiator of this decision.
Context
- Initially, the Lviv Regional Council published a decision to hold thematic events throughout the year dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation movement and its figures; however, the decision was later removed from the council’s website.
- Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the Lviv Regional Council’s decision counterproductive.
- As stated on the ministry’s website, such actions harm Ukraine and complicate Polish-Ukrainian co-operation.
- The ministry said that in recent years it has been possible to achieve significant progress in building a strategic partnership with Poland, carrying out search and exhumation work, and establishing historical dialogue. Defence co-operation is also developing.
- Sheremeta called the reaction of Polish politicians strange and stressed that similar decisions have been adopted by Ukrainian regional councils before. He also said the document was not directed against Poland, but aimed to honour figures of the Ukrainian national liberation movement.
- A new crisis in Polish-Ukrainian relations began after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to name a Ukrainian brigade after the heroes of the UPA. Zelenskyy said the soldiers themselves had asked him to do so.
- This triggered a wave of outrage on the Polish side, which reacts negatively to anything connected with the OUN and UPA.
- Later, commenting on a series of scandalous situations following his decision, the Ukrainian president said that Nawrocki’s team is fanning the flames around the UPA issue for political purposes — they are preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections and want to boost their ratings in this way.
- Warsaw focuses only on crimes committed by Ukrainians against Poles, while avoiding mention of crimes committed by Polish armed formations against Ukrainian villages in the Chełm region, Podlasie, and Volhynia.
- Kyiv urged partners to engage in dialogue and, above all, to take a professional historical approach to the events of the 1940s, rather than politicising the issue and spreading fakes.