Polish far-right leader Braun vandalises Ukrainian monument with hammer

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Polish far-right leader Grzegorz Braun has published a video of himself using a hammer to attack a monument in Poland dedicated to soldiers from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a World War Two partisan formation that fought against the Soviet Union but was also responsible for massacring Poles.

Braun declared that the monument, which was also recently vandalised by other unknown perpetrators, should be removed as it “insults the memory of victims of the Ukrainian genocide against Poles” and “glorifies Nazism”.

The incident comes amid recent tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv over World War Two history, and in particular the fact that the UPA continues to be honoured in Ukraine.

The monument in question is located in the village of Liski, a few kilometres from the border with Ukraine, and marks the burial site of 41 UPA soldiers killed while fighting against the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, in 1946, in the aftermath of World War Two. The area previously had a large ethnic-Ukrainian population.

The memorial was vandalised last month, when it was sprayed with black paint and its arch was damaged. On Monday this week, further damage was discovered to the inscription on the monument.

Police announced that they had launched an investigation into vandalism, property damage and ethnic hatred, but had not yet identified the perpetrators, reported the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

On Wednesday evening, Braun published a video showing himself and another man using a hammer to repeatedly strike the front of the monument, causing visible damage to the stone, which contains the names of the killed UPA soldiers. They also appear to attempt to remove a separate plaque.

During the video, Braun, who is a member of the European Parliament and finished fourth in last year’s Polish presidential election, claimed that local residents are “afraid they would be set on fire” if they attempted to remove the memorial themselves. It is not clear when the video was recorded.

Shortly after Braun published it, local police in Hrubieszów county, where the monument is located, issued a statement saying that officers were investigating damage to the monument. Interior ministry spokeswoman Karolina Gałecka shared their statement and declared that “the perpetrators will not go unpunished”.

Braun regularly carries out stunts intended to demonstrate his anti-Ukrainian, antisemitic and anti-LGBT views, and is already facing multiple legal cases over such incidents.

He is currently on trial for attacking a celebration of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in parliament using a fire extinguisher. Last month, he was charged with the crime of denying Nazi crimes for claiming that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are “fake”.

He was also charged with theft over incidents in which he tore down Ukrainian and European Union flags, and with vandalism of an LGBT+ exhibition. If convicted, some of the crimes Braun is charged with carry potential years-long prison sentences.

Nevertheless, Braun’s party, Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP), continues to enjoy support of around 8-9%, according to polling averages. That could make it a key player in deciding who can form a government after next year’s parliamentary elections.

At the time of writing, there had been no response from Ukrainian authorities to Braun’s latest stunt. However, when the same monument was vandalised last month, the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw issued a statement expressing its “deep indignation”.

“Regardless of the difficult and tragic chapters of our shared history, burial and memorial sites should remain outside the realm of political disputes and be treated with respect,” they wrote.

The embassy also expressed “particular concern that this incident occurs against the backdrop of a rising number of hostile acts toward Ukrainians in Poland, including reports of aggression and attacks on Ukrainian citizens”

“Any attempts to shift historical disputes into the realm of vandalism, intimidation or hostility toward modern Ukraine and Ukrainians are dangerous and must be met with an appropriate legal response,” they added.

Poland and Ukraine have been embroiled in a diplomatic dispute since May, when President Volodymyr Zelensky named a military unit after the “heroes of the UPA”. His Polish counterpart, Karol Nawrocki, responded by stripping Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour.

Tensions have since cooled, and Ukraine has made moves to defuse the crisis. However, significant differences remain, in particular over memory of the so-called Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the killing of around 100,000 Polish civilians.

Poland regards the episode as a genocide. Ukraine strongly rejects that label, and also continues to honour the UPA for its role in fighting against Moscow-imposed Soviet rule.

Recent months have also seen a rise in anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland, including a series of cases of verbal or physical attacks against Ukrainians, who are by far Poland’s largest immigrant group. Reported anti-Ukrainian hate crimes were up 30% in the first half of this year.

In 2017, Ukraine responded to the dismantling of a UPA monument in Poland by introducing a ban on exhumations of Polish victims of the Volhynia massacres on its territory. It is believed that tens of thousands still remain buried in unmarked mass graves.

However, last year, in a diplomatic breakthrough, Kyiv allowed such exhumations to resume, and since then the remains of dozens of victims have been found, researched and reburied.

Earlier this month, Poland also granted Ukraine permission to conduct a search for the remains of Ukrainian civilians killed by Polish resistance fighters during World War Two.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Braun/X

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.