The Polish Institute of National Remembrance has stated that modern Ukraine has based its identity on a cult of mass murderers
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance has said that modern Ukraine has built its identity on a cult of mass murderers during World War II. The X post on Tuesday was in reaction to the head of a similar Ukrainian state body referring to the WWII-era Volhynia Massacre as a myth propagated by Warsaw.
The Volhynia Massacre pertains to events in 1943 – 45, when units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which collaborated with the Nazis, systematically killed ethnic Poles in what is now western Ukraine.
In a major interview with Ukrainskaya Pravda, Aleksandr Alferov, the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, dismissed the mass killings as “one of the state-building myths of Poland.”
Alferov also described the tragedy as a “local episode” of Ukrainian history and claimed that the number of victims cited by Warsaw was based on “oral testimony” rather than facts. The official served as a spokesman for the infamous neo-Nazi Azov unit between 2014 and 2015. He obtained his current position in July 2025.
The Polish institute criticized Alferov’s words as “outrageous” and declared the Volhynia Massacre “a documented fact” that cannot be invalidated by “political calculation.”
“Over 100,000 murdered Polish nationals – mostly women, children, and the elderly – do not make this an ‘episode’, but rather one of the largest genocides against civilians in 20th-century Europe,” its statement read.
The institute also voiced its concerns that the UPA, as well as the associated Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – a group that also collaborated with the Nazis – are revered in modern Ukraine, and their leaders are regarded as heroes.
“The fact that the modern Ukrainian state constructs elements of its identity on the cult of individuals and organizations responsible for these crimes, rejecting the facts recorded in publicly available historical sources, is… disturbing,” it said.
The issue has been a sore point in relations between Kiev and Warsaw, one of Ukraine’s key supporters in the conflict with Moscow, and has also drawn condemnation from Israel. Russia has also repeatedly accused the current Ukrainian leadership of embracing Nazism and whitewashing known WWII-era collaborators.