The president of the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, has once again criticized Ukraine this Saturday for the repatriation of the historic ultranationalist and Nazi collaborator Andri Melnik for his reburial with honors in Kyiv, and has called into question Ukraine's European options by considering that it is "glorifying bandits and murderers".
"Unfortunately, Ukrainian President (Volodymyr) Zelensky has shown that Ukraine has a mentality of glorifying bandits and murderers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and is not ready to be part of the European family," Nawrocki stated to the press, insisting that this decision sends a signal incompatible with the values of the European Union.
For the Polish representative, "there is no place in the European family for bandits and murderers who killed women and children, who murdered Poles." "Such bandits must not be glorified, and the UIA cannot be glorified," he added, emphasizing that the memory of Polish victims remains a key point of friction in bilateral relations.
Zelensky presided last Monday over the reburial ceremony of Melnik, a collaborator with Nazi Germany, a week after his mortal remains, along with those of his wife, Sofia, were transferred from Luxembourg, in an act framed within the current historical memory policy promoted by Kyiv.
Melnik belonged to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) --banned in Russia--, a fascist political formation, praised by Ukrainian sectors for its resistance against Soviet rule and Polish occupation, but also noted for its collaboration with Nazi Germany during different stages of World War II.
Accused of participating in the massacres of Jews and Poles during that period, Melnik ended up being rejected by the Nazis themselves, who opposed recognizing an independent Ukrainian state and interned him for several months in a concentration camp in 1944.
The return of Melnik's remains is part of the repatriation program that Zelensky's government plans to develop, which also includes other controversial figures of Ukrainian nationalism, such as Yevhen Konovalets, which keeps old historical wounds with Poland open.