Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun destroys UPA monument near Polish-Ukrainian border; police open hate-crime probe

Why it matters

A sitting member of the European Parliament personally destroyed a monument on a burial site and posted video of the act, raising questions about accountability for elected officials. The incident touches a long-running and sensitive area of Polish-Ukrainian historical memory around the UPA and contested World War II-era figures, at a moment when, according to Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki, Ukraine's EU integration is already politically linked to this issue. Polish authorities are treating the case not only as property damage and desecration but also as a possible hate crime on national grounds, and Ukrainian commentators have linked the destruction to the long-suspended bilateral arrangement on exhumations, indicating possible diplomatic fallout.

What happened

Grzegorz Braun, a Polish member of the European Parliament and leader of the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown, together with a party colleague identified as Marcin Miksza, damaged a granite obelisk in the village of Białystok in gmina Dołhobyczów, Hrubieszów county, Lublin Voivodeship, near the Polish-Ukrainian border. The two struck the stone with hammers or hatchets, breaking the inscriptions carved into it; sources differ on whether the instruments were hammers/sledgehammers or axes/hatchets. Braun published video of the act on his X account and, in the accompanying post, called for the obelisk to be dismantled, saying it "insults the memory of victims of the Ukrainian genocide of Poles" and claiming the monument had been erected illegally.

The obelisk marks the burial site of 41 UPA servicemen who died in fighting with the Soviet NKVD in February 1946 and were buried there; the memorial site has existed since the 1990s and the current granite stone with the names of the fallen has been in place since 2019. Polish police opened an investigation on September 6 into desecration of a monument and burial site, property damage, and a possible hate crime on national grounds; at the start of the probe no suspects had been detained and police were collecting evidence and questioning witnesses. Spokeswoman for Poland's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration Karolina Gałecka said those responsible "would not go unpunished."

The monument had previously been vandalized in summer 2026, when it was spray-painted and an arch decorating the stone was damaged — an act the Ukrainian Embassy officially condemned — and again shortly before Braun's video, when unknown persons damaged the inscriptions. The outlet OKO.press reported that burial sites in Poland are legally protected regardless of whether administrative procedures were followed when the monument itself was erected, contesting Braun's claim that the obelisk had been installed illegally.

How Ukrainian sources describe it

All of the supplied sources are Ukrainian media, and they frame Braun as a scandalous, anti-Ukrainian ultranationalist, foregrounding outrage at the act. Headlines emphasize his far-right identity, the axe/hatchet imagery, and the destruction of a UPA monument rather than any procedural or legal aspects. Coverage highlights the earlier 2026 vandalism of the same site, the Ukrainian Embassy's condemnation of that earlier act, and — through the serviceman-historian Volodymyr Birchak — the long-suspended arrangement on exhumations of Polish and Ukrainian burial sites, presenting the destruction as part of a recurring pattern rather than an isolated incident. Polish official or independent Polish-media voices appear in the reporting but only as supporting quotation, not as the primary framing.

Where reporting differs

Articles differ on the instrument Braun and his colleague used: some describe axes or hatchets ("sokyry-moloty"), others describe hammers or sledgehammers, and they vary on the composition of the set of tools. Confidence levels also vary substantially across the fact set on the same underlying events — for example, the figure of 41 soldiers buried at the site and the status of suspects range from 0.65 to 0.98 in confidence across repetitions — and several Ukrainian-source facts carry lower confidence (0.65–0.7), in particular Volodymyr Birchak's claims about exhumation permits and restorations.

Background

The destroyed obelisk marked the burial site of 41 Ukrainian servicemen killed in fighting with the Soviet NKVD in February 1946; the memorial has existed since the 1990s and in its current granite form since 2019. It had been vandalized at least twice before — in the summer of 2026, when it was doused with paint and its arch was cut, prompting an official condemnation from the Ukrainian Embassy, and again shortly before Braun's video, when unknown persons damaged the inscriptions. Braun leads the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown and has a documented record of anti-Ukrainian actions and other incidents, including extinguishing a Hanukkah menorah in the Sejm in December 2024 and being the sole Sejm deputy to vote against a pre-invasion resolution supporting Ukraine. OKO.press reported that burial sites in Poland are legally protected regardless of whether administrative procedures were followed when any monument on them was erected, which directly contests Braun's claim that the obelisk was installed illegally. At the end of August, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki stated that the appearance of figures such as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine's National Pantheon would lead to major problems with the country's EU integration.