MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. Polish Minister of National Defense Wladysіaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has demanded his Ukrainian counterpart Mikhail Fyodorov cancel the decision to assign one of the military units of the Ukrainian army the name "heroes of the UIA" (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).
"I am in contact with the minister of defense of Ukraine, I have conveyed to him our position regarding the naming of one of the military units after the UIA. I will do everything to have this decision reviewed. We express our position very clearly," Kosiniak-Kamysz said at a press conference broadcast by TVP Info.
The minister said he did not accept the explanations of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga, who said it was military personnel’s idea. Kosiniak-Kamysz called Kiev's glorification of Stepan Bandera "an unfriendly act that wounded the hearts of Poles."
This decision caused outrage in Poland. The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw to express its concern. Polish President Karol Nawrocki proposed to deprive Vladimir Zelensky of the republic's highest state award, the Order of the White Eagle.
Poland from time to time expresses its outrage at Kiev's glorification of Bandera, responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 Poles in Western Ukraine during the WWII. In 2016, the Polish parliament recognized the killings as genocide.