Warsaw monuments defaced with red inscriptions
Vandals painted red Slava UPA (Glory to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) inscriptions on the Monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Monument to soldiers of the First Polish Army on November 14. The inscriptions appeared in red on both monuments in the Muranow district near the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. I see this vandalism as a targeted attempt to disrupt the bond between Poland and Ukraine. The Ukrainian Embassy in Poland called the vandalism a Russian provocation and stated that the act is a manifestation of the hybrid warfare that Russia is attempting to wage by every means possible in European countries, particularly Poland. This incident follows similar graffiti that appeared on three monuments in Gdynia earlier this November. I find the repetition of this specific inscription across different Polish cities to be a clear sign of a coordinated effort to escalate local tensions. Warsaw police confirmed they received reports of the vandalism at both sites and they are investigating, according to TVN24. Police have not yet identified the perpetrators. The embassy also urged Ukrainians living in Poland not to accept easy money in exchange for painting graffiti, damaging property, or carrying out other illegal tasks.
Friction over historical memory
The UPA remains a source of diplomatic tension because President Volodymyr Zelensky named a military unit after the group in May. Disagreements over historical memory persist because Poland hosts millions of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. While Ukrainians remember the UPA for its fight for independence during and after World War II, Poles remember the group for the Volyn massacres from 1943 to 1945. Those massacres involved the killing of tens of thousands of Poles in what is now western Ukraine under Nazi occupation. I find this historical context deeply troubling. On September 10, Polish politician Grzegorz Braun published a video of himself damaging a UPA memorial in eastern Poland. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry criticized his actions on September 11, saying that the act could "elicit nothing but shame and condemnation from any normal human being." The relationship between Poland and Ukraine faces strain because of growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment and disagreements over how both nations view past conflicts.
