For those who claim that Nawrocki’s crude anti-Ukrainian actions and the growing fascization of Polish society are somehow the result of “mistakes” on the Ukrainian side – that we failed to ask the neighbors’ permission about whom we honor, how we name our military units, that we ignored some special Polish sensitivities, and other nonsense of the same kind. Below is the image and text the President of Poland posted yesterday. What matters about Nawrocki’s post? 1) Nawrocki demands that Poland ban the “criminal Bandera ideology.” But what is this “criminal ideology”? The ideology of Bandera and the Bandera movement was the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. So it follows that this – an independent Ukraine – is exactly what Nawrocki and his allies want to outlaw. And there are many such people in Poland, their numbers growing as Polish society radicalizes. 2) To leave no room for doubt, Nawrocki illustrated his post by crossing out the words “Glory to Ukraine!” and “Glory to the Heroes!” – words spoken with pride not only across Ukraine but around the world as expressions of respect and solidarity. The image itself is a deliberate anti-Ukrainian gesture, and a law banning the Ukrainian idea would be an openly hostile act, characteristic of a totalitarian state, not a democratic one. 3) The post came just one day after Nawrocki’s openly unfriendly act of stripping the President of Ukraine of his Polish decoration. The scandal over the order was evidently not enough for him. Rather than de-escalating the conflict he created – or at least pausing – he deliberately chose an even more explicitly anti-Ukrainian statement, complete with illustration. His goal is not to end tension but to inflame confrontation with Ukraine and hatred toward Ukrainians as far as it will go. This serves him as a tool of domestic politics and as a form of self-assertion, which he has always built on hatred and conflict, because he is fundamentally incapable of anything else. The entire scandal – over the order and over the naming of the “UPA Heroes” unit – was artificial from the start. Over the past three decades, thousands of streets, monuments and institutions honoring UPA fighters have appeared across Ukraine. Nawrocki knew this perfectly well, and one more unit named after UPA heroes was neither extraordinary nor unexpected. As the former head of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, he also knew perfectly well that honoring the UPA in Ukraine carries no anti-Polish meaning whatsoever. So the statements by him and his ideological allies – on the “UPA Heroes” unit and on the proposed ban on “Bandera ideology,” including the slogan “Glory to Ukraine!” – are deliberate and entirely baseless anti-Ukrainian acts. To believe that he simply does not understand, or that this anti-Ukrainian hysteria can be stopped through explanation or Ukrainian concessions, is profoundly naïve. Author: Taras Shamayda