Ukraine Proposes Roadmap to Resolve Historical Disputes With Poland

Finally some good news in the topic

Nawrocki ruining it in 3…2..1

Shit nobody cares about

It was about time.

That’s good to hear but that is just a lot of declarations and back-patting. Frankly, I’m not too optimistic because Polish politicians just tend to keep falling to exactly the same pit of performative gestures of gratitude and signs of appreciation. The same approach to the Polish-Ukrainian dialogue was applied before and it has failed completely as we have all witnessed this diplomatic failure, so it is unlikely to have the opposite outcome this time. Historical narratives of both countries did not change at all so I don’t believe anything of substance is going to take a conciliatory turn, at least on the state level. This sudden turn of the attitude on the Ukrainian side just seems way too drastic to sincerely portend a major positive shift in the Polish-Ukrainian relations. But let’s hope for the best.

Let’s not delude ourselves. There can be no reconciliation here. Ukraine won’t stop honoring the OUN-UPA, Shukhevych, and Bandera. With the shift in generations, they have become far too popular for the government to drop them, and Poland, in turn, simply cannot turn a blind eye to it.

This dispute has made me realize just how stupid the approach to teaching children history is in most, if not all, nations. Children are taught to associate themselves with their tribe, “their” leaders of the past, people from vastly different societies that preceded modernity. When I see dogshit rhetoric from Ukrainians who say “yeah, but Poland oppressed Ukrainians before that” replying to Polish outrage over UPA, it’s this stupid monkey brain tribalism that we should find a way to move past. But it’s there from the childhood. If a child is taught about “their” people, calling out something members of their tribe did in the past triggers this tribalism. If your country or an organization from it did something terrible, why ever be defensive? If you didn’t do anything wrong, if you want to live a modern, free, moral nation, how is it an issue to look the truth in its eyes and separate yourself from different people of another era?

I also recall redditors saying that there is no need to honor UPA, Ukraine has a rich history, just recall heroes of Rus. Warlord leaders who raided neighbors to pillage them, who forcibly converted people to Christianity, who traded slaves as a pillar of state’s economy? And if it seems like I am shitting on Ukraine, just take any other country. Poland honors their second republic, the same one that had anti-Semitic laws, that oppressed other minorities, that took over a part of Czechoslovakia after Nazi invasion. I am not against nation states. Nationalism has positive aspects. But I think we should radically change how we teach history and emphasize that people who were on our land before, belonging to the same continuous ethnic or national community, are not us.

Read the article please instead of just the headline

Ukraine did not commit to do anything – no end to the glorification of thr UPA, no end to to the glorification of Bandera, nothing except allowing the exhumation of the Volyn massacre victims which they had already agreed to before (after immense pressure btw) – it is essentially a “You stop being upset that we glorify people who mass murdered yours, and we do nothing in exchange.”

It will fail, and it will fail because of Poland. Let me explain. Demonizing Ukrainians is like a gift from heaven for right wing politicians here. We don’t even need Russian propaganda, our own politicians are willing to stoke anti-Ukrainian hate because it gets them votes and riles up the population. And the rest of out political scene is dumb enough to just follow those manufactured trends ( see Trzaskowski also campaigning on taking away 800+ for non-working Ukrainians ) instead of reversing them.

Whatever you think of Wołyń, UPA or Bandera, there is a lot of money and a lot of political power focused on keeping the animosity between us and Ukraine. Even if the current government manages to work something out, be prepared for Nawrocki / next right wing government to blow it all up.

>The diplomatic initiative [includes ](https://x.com/andrii_sybiha/status/2073051884705767496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2073051884705767496%7Ctwgr%5Eab855301a536f9e490d7a15cdefca05c645dd66b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsuspilne.media%2F1346818-ukraina-zaproponuvala-polsi-paket-antikrizovih-krokiv-dla-pokrasenna-vidnosin-sibiga%2F)structured consultations between the respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs, collaborative meetings between World War II historians, and the involvement of prominent religious leaders in a renewed bilateral dialogue.

This has all been done before. Nihil novi sub sole

The rest is empty talk.

And the veneration of genocidal organizations like the OUN and its armed wing, the UPA, continues unabated. Orders and monuments continue to be created, and squares and streets are named.

I also wonder what we will do with the approximately 100,000 civilian victims, brutally murdered, in addition to the murdered Jews, Czechs, Armenians, Ukrainians (yes, the UPA killed its own transgressors), Lemkos, Boyjkos, and other Ruthenians.

The gentlemen have been chatting, the unit is still called “Heroes of the UPA,” and the results are nothing. All of that has already happened.

And now we can claim a great success, because we achieved precisely nothing, so this is the greatest diplomatic success of all…