More than half of Poles view Ukraine more negatively due to military unit name controversy, poll shows

About 51.9% of Poles say their attitude toward Ukraine and Ukrainians has worsened due to Kyiv naming a military unit after a World War II-era insurgent army, according to a survey reported by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on June 11.

Some 31.9% of respondents said the controversy, which sparked a diplomatic row between Kyiv and Warsaw, did not affect their view of Ukraine, according to a survey conducted by the Warsaw-based SW Research agency.

According to the poll, the decline in attitudes was prevalent among men, younger respondents, people with vocational education, and those earning less than 3,000 Polish zloty (about $810) per month. The survey was conducted online between June 9 and 10 with a representative sample of 800 people.

Polish officials and public figures have widely criticized President Volodymyr Zelensky for naming a special forces unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist resistance organization founded in 1942.

While Ukraine accents the UPA's role in resisting Soviet rule and fighting for Ukraine's independence, Poland primarily associates the group with the Volyn massacres, mass killings of Poles carried out between 1943 and 1945.

Tens of thousands of Poles were killed in what is today western Ukraine, then under Nazi occupation, while thousands of Ukrainians were killed in retaliatory Polish attacks.

The military unit name controversy led Polish President Karol Nawrocki to propose stripping Zelensky of Poland's highest state award, conferred on the Ukrainian leader in 2023 by Nawrocki's predecessor, Andrzej Duda.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in turn, called for both sides to engage in an open dialogue and not to allow Moscow to benefit from a Polish-Ukrainian rift.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha assured Polish partners that the Ukrainian soldiers who requested the title "had absolutely no anti-Polish intent."

"For them, it was about honoring those who, similarly many years ago, fought against imperial Moscow, Bolshevik-communist occupation, and repression," Sybiha said.

Poland has been a close ally of Kyiv since the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, providing a key logistical route for military aid flowing to Ukraine and currently hosting close to 1 million Ukrainian refugees.

However, relations between the two neighbors have been marked by periods of tension in recent years, often over unresolved historical grievances.