The mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War meets the definition of genocide and the government in Kiev will have to recognize this sooner or later, Poland’s Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Jaroslaw Sellin said on Tuesday.
“They have to acknowledge it because it’s a fact. It’s simply a fact. A political decision was made and implemented for ethnic cleansing, the extermination of the entire national minority that has lived there for centuries,” Sellin told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) during a TV interview.
“This is genocide, it fits all the parameters of the definition of genocide, so there is no discussion here. This is a historical fact. Sooner or later, the Ukrainians will have to recognize it,” he added.
Polish historians say between 100,000-130,000 ethnic Poles were massacred by Stepan Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In 2016, the parliament in Warsaw adopted a resolution establishing July 11 as a day of commemorating the genocide, referring to the date on which the UPA attacked 150 Polish towns in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The parliament in Kiev responded by denouncing the resolution as counterproductive.