Lviv council's 2027 UPA-year vote sparks Polish outrage, removed same evening
On 20 October, the Lviv Oblast Council voted to designate 2027 as the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), its commander Roman Shukhevych, and poet Oleh Olzhych. Senior Polish officials — including Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz — denounced the move as "unacceptable" and harmful to Ukraine. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said the Ukrainian side, through associates of President Zelensky, promised the decision would not enter into force, and the announcement was removed from the Lviv council's website and social media later that evening.
Key points
- On 20 October, the Lviv Oblast Council voted at a plenary session to declare 2027 the year of the UPA, Roman Shukhevych, and Oleh Olzhych.
- The decision was timed to the 120th anniversary of Shukhevych's birth, the 85th anniversary of the UPA's founding, and the 120th anniversary of Olzhych's birth.
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the vote "unwise" and said it harms Ukraine and could be used by opponents of Ukraine's EU accession.
- Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz called the decision "unacceptable" on X, saying it deepens divisions rather than building mutual trust.
- Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said the decision looked as if it had been made "by Russian agents" and reported that associates of President Zelensky promised it would not enter into force.
- Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski signed a motion to add Sviatoslav Sheremeta, head of the council's culture committee and author of the proposal, to Poland's persona non grata list.
- The post announcing the decision was removed from the Lviv Oblast Council's website and social media on the evening of 20 October.
Why it matters
The Lviv vote reopened a recurring fault line in Polish-Ukrainian relations over how to commemorate OUN and UPA figures, with Poland framing them as perpetrators of wartime crimes against ethnic Poles and Ukraine treating them as independence heroes. The scale of the Polish reaction — comments from the prime minister, deputy prime minister and defence minister, the foreign minister, and the presidential spokesperson — pushed the dispute well beyond local politics. Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski's reported motion to declare Sheremeta persona non grata marked an unusually direct sanction against a Ukrainian regional official. The episode also lands on top of the May row over naming a Ukrainian military unit "heroes of the UPA" and the subsequent revocation of a Polish decoration from President Zelensky, suggesting historical memory is becoming an escalating irritant in the bilateral relationship at a time when Ukraine is seeking EU accession.
What happened
At a plenary session on 20 October, the Lviv Oblast Council voted to designate 2027 as the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), its main commander Roman Shukhevych, and poet and OUN activist Oleh Olzhych. The move was tied to the 120th anniversary of Shukhevych's birth, the 85th anniversary of the UPA's founding, and the 120th anniversary of Olzhych's birth. Sviatoslav Sheremeta, head of the council's culture committee and a deputy, defended the decision at the session, calling the honoured figures "our history, our heroes." The reaction in Warsaw was swift: Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz called the vote "unacceptable" on X; Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki told TVN24 the decision was "very bad, even provocative" and said it looked as if it had been made "by Russian agents"; Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was "unwise" and harmful to Ukraine; presidential spokesperson Rafał Leśkiewicz said on Radio ZET that it "smells of Russian provocation"; and the Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór said it runs against European values. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said he had signed a motion to add Sheremeta to Poland's persona non grata list. On the evening of 20 October, the announcement of the vote and the text of the resolution were removed from the Lviv Oblast Council's website and social media. Bosacki reported that close associates of President Volodymyr Zelensky had promised Poland the decision would not enter into force.
How Ukrainian sources describe it
Ukrainian-language coverage centres on the Lviv council's own anniversary framing, linking the designation to the 120th birth anniversaries of Shukhevych and Olzhych and to 85 years since the UPA's founding, and prominently quotes culture committee head Sviatoslav Sheremeta calling the figures "our history, our heroes." Ukrainian pieces note that similar UPA-year designations were previously adopted by other regional councils in 2006, 2007 and 2017, and that a National Pantheon document permits commemoration of figures linked to OUN and UPA. They also highlight the same evening's removal of the announcement from the council's website and social media, presenting it as part of an active effort to defuse the row, and note Bosacki's report that the Ukrainian side, through associates of President Zelensky, promised the decision would not enter into force. Some Ukrainian pieces point to Sheremeta's prior 2018 entry ban to Poland as context for what they describe as the personal dimension of the Polish reaction.
How international sources describe it
The Polish-language coverage frames the Lviv vote primarily as a provocation out of Warsaw, leading with the Polish reaction rather than the Lviv anniversary context. Polish officials across the reporting describe the decision as "unacceptable," "provocative," "a very bad decision made as if by Russian agents" and "unwise," and frame it as contrary to European values and to the strategic character of Polish-Ukrainian relations. Polish voices including Prime Minister Tusk and presidential spokesperson Leśkiewicz explicitly cast the vote as harmful to Ukraine's own interests and as a potential tool for opponents of Ukraine's EU accession. Foreign Minister Sikorski's reported motion to declare Sheremeta persona non grata is highlighted as a concrete Polish punitive measure tied specifically to the Lviv decision.
Where reporting differs
Polish and Ukrainian sources frame the same historical figures in fundamentally opposed terms. Polish officials and historians treat OUN (Bandera faction) and UPA as perpetrators of crimes against the Polish population — pointing to coordinated attacks on roughly 150 Polish-inhabited settlements in Volhynia in July 1943, classified in Poland as genocide — and push for legal bans on related symbols. Many Ukrainian historians and politicians, by contrast, frame those events as part of a broader bilateral conflict in which both sides bear responsibility, and treat OUN and UPA as symbols of the struggle for Ukrainian independence and postwar resistance against the Soviet Union.
Background
Poland formally classifies crimes committed by members of OUN (Bandera faction) and UPA units against the Polish population in 1940s Volhynia as genocide; the July 1943 coordinated attacks on around 150 Polish settlements are central to this classification. In Ukrainian historical memory, OUN and UPA are widely seen as symbols of the struggle for Ukrainian independence and postwar resistance against the Soviet Union, and a Ukrainian National Pantheon document permits commemoration of figures linked to these organizations. Similar regional "year of UPA/Shukhevych" designations were previously adopted by Lviv, Ternopil and Volyn oblast councils in 2006, 2007 and 2017. In late May, President Zelensky signed a decision giving a Ukrainian military unit the honorary name "heroes of the UPA," triggering a diplomatic deterioration with Warsaw that included Polish President Karol Nawrocki revoking a decoration previously awarded to Zelensky. Zelensky and Prime Minister Tusk held talks in Lublin on 29 July aimed at repairing relations after that "order crisis." President Nawrocki used the Volhynia commemoration day to call for a legislative ban in Poland on the red-and-black OUN-UPA flag. Sviatoslav Sheremeta received a one-year entry ban to Poland in 2018, linked at the time to a Kyiv Institute of National Remembrance ban on searches and exhumations of Polish war victims' remains on Ukrainian territory.