Zelensky ignites fury by honouring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a World War II-era militia responsible for massacring Polish and Jewish civilians, triggering a diplomatic crisis with Poland. The move reignited decades-old historical grievances between Kyiv and Warsaw over how Ukraine commemorates nationalist figures involved in ethnic violence. Polish officials condemned the decision as glorifying perpetrators of atrocities, while Ukrainian leaders defended it as honoring resistance fighters against Soviet occupation. The dispute underscores how competing narratives about wartime history continue to fracture relationships among Eastern European allies now unified against Russian aggression.