Unlike the Mainstream media, that is maintaining a veil of silence over this, The Gateway Pundit is reporting on the increased tensions in the bilateral relations between Ukraine and its neighbor and top backer Poland.
Among many issues, the main disagreement lies over the settling of a historical wound of the Volyn massacre, during the Second World War.
The Volyn massacre was a series of war crimes perpetrated by Ukrainian Nazis, under national hero Stepan Bandera, that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population.
Poland, to this day, considers the Volyn tragedy to be genocide of Poles.
Since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aggressively refused to discuss the issue in the latest meeting in Kiev, Poland is no planning to use its upcoming EU presidency to pressure Ukraine on the issue and exhume victims of the massacre, giving them proper burials.
In its six-month EU presidency starting January 2025. Warsaw will play a key role in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations.
The position of the Ukrainian government on the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy is deeply disappointing for Warsaw, so the Polish Foreign Ministry is ‘planning certain measures’.
Euro Integration reported:
“A source familiar with the talks said that ‘Ukraine has taken a demanding position’: ‘We know that Zelenskyy is under enormous pressure, but it cannot be that concessions go only one way. Meanwhile, Ukraine has taken a demanding stance. In the defense sector, we can understand this. But in other areas, it has to change’.
A Polish foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Volyn issue is currently Poland’s ‘main and basically only demand’.”
Poland’s Foreign Ministry reportedly plans to use Ukraine’s European integration aspirations as a tool to put pressure on Kiev.
“‘Sikorski was trying to persuade Zelensky to settle historical issues with Poland now, as he would pay a lower price for them than during the accession negotiations. This did not reach Zelensky’, one of the sources told the [Polish press].”
Kiev now will need Warsaw’s commitment to its accession to the EU. But Poland will ask for its price.
“Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski believes that Warsaw is not making excessive demands on Kiev in historical disputes and that it is too early to ‘leave history to historians’.”
Meanwhile, Poland’s deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has stated that Ukraine cannot and will not be admitted to the European Union until the two countries ‘resolve’ the controversial issue of the Volynia massacres, in which Ukrainian nationalists killed around 100,000 ethnic Poles during World War Two.
Notes from Poland reported:
“’Let me state clearly: Ukraine will not join the European Union if the Volhynia issue is not resolved’, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz told broadcaster Polsat. ‘There will be no open borders and there will be no trade exchange at the current level if the Volhynia issue is not resolved’.
‘We want Ukraine to develop, but we cannot leave unattended a wound that has not healed’, he added. ‘Issues regarding the genocide in Volhynia remain unresolved’.”
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