UPA
The UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) was a Ukrainian paramilitary and partisan formation established in 1942 in the territory of Nazi-occupied Ukraine as the armed wing of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). It operated mainly in western Ukraine and fought successively against the German occupation, the Soviet forces and, after the Second World War, continued armed resistance against Soviet rule into the mid-1950s. The UPA's history remains deeply contested in Ukrainian, Polish, Russian and broader European memory, in part because its anti-Soviet struggle was accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945, a subject that continues to shape relations between Ukraine and Poland today.
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Lviv Regional Council Declares 2027 'Year of UPA, Shukhevych and Olzhych,' Sparking Polish Outcry
On 20 October the Lviv Oblast Council voted to designate 2027 as a year honouring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), its commander Roman Shukhevych and poet Oleh Olzhych. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski sharply criticised the move, with Sikorski signing a motion to add the initiative's author, Sviatoslav Sheremeta, to Poland's list of undesirable persons. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry called the decision counterproductive and stressed it was a regional act taken without consulting central authorities.
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Poland imposes five-year Schengen entry ban on Lviv regional council deputy Sheremeta
Poland has banned Svyatoslav Sheremeta, a deputy of the Lviv Oblast Council and director of the memorial-search centre "Dolya", from entering and staying in the Schengen Area for five years, until 20 October 2031. Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński announced the ban on 21 October, on a request filed by Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. The move follows a 20 October vote by the Lviv Oblast Council, initiated by Sheremeta, to declare 2027 the year of Roman Shukhevych, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and Oleh Olzhych.
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Polish president's circle negotiates with far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun over Senate pact
Representatives of Polish President Karol Nawrocki are in talks with associates of Grzegorz Braun about adding Braun's party, Konfederacja Korony Polskiej, to a right-wing electoral pact for the Senate elections. The move would lift the political cordon sanitaire around a figure known for anti-Semitic, pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian actions, including the recent destruction of a UPA memorial in eastern Poland.
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Ukrainian search expedition finds about 30 remains of 1944 massacre victims in Polish village of Laskiv
A Ukrainian search expedition discovered approximately 30 sets of human remains at an Orthodox cemetery in the village of Laskiv in Poland's Lublin Voivodeship. The remains are identified as Ukrainians killed in a March 1944 attack by units of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie). The dig was commissioned by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and carried out by the communal enterprise 'Dolya' under a Polish permit issued in August 2026.