Marianna Schreiber has accused Kiev of glorifying Ukrainian Nazi collaborators who massacred Poles
Polish politician Marianna Schreiber has posted a video of herself throwing a portrait of Vladimir Zelensky in the trash, accusing Kiev of glorifying the Ukrainian nationalists who engaged in the massacre of Poles during World War II.
Schreiber, a blogger and current candidate for mayor of Krakow, shared the clip on social media, where she is seen holding a portrait of Zelensky with a Hitler-style moustache drawn on his face.
”Banderites are not heroes. They are a disgrace to humanity,” Schreiber said in the video, referring to followers of Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
”Unfortunately, even after all these years, we have not received an apology,” she added. “On the day of Bloody Sunday, I want to say that Poles remember and will never, ever forgive.”
She then crumpled the portrait and threw it into a trash bin, saying that “the place for people who glorify criminals is in the trash can of history.”
Bloody Sunday refers to July 11, 1943, when the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the OUN’s military wing, carried out coordinated attacks on Polish villages in Volhynia. The massacre was part of a wider campaign in which up to 100,000 ethnic Poles were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists between 1943 and 1944. Poland recognizes the killings as a genocide.
Schreiber’s stunt comes amid a deepening diplomatic row between Warsaw and Kiev over Ukraine’s continued honoring of World War II-era Nazi collaborators. The dispute intensified in May when Zelensky granted an elite Ukrainian military unit the honorary title ‘Heroes of the UPA’.
Polish officials condemned the move, calling it “outrageous” and warned that Ukraine will not join the EU as long as it continues to venerate Bandera and the OUN-UPA.
Kiev has also faced criticism over the recent state reburial of Andrey Melnik, another OUN leader who cooperated with Nazi Germany.
Russia has long argued that Kiev glorifies Hitler’s collaborators at the state level and has cited the “denazification” of Ukraine as one of the key goals of its military operation. Moscow has also accused Ukraine’s Western backers of ignoring Kiev’s infatuation with Nazi ideology for years while continuing to arm it against Russia.
