00:06A dramatic protest in Poland is grabbing international attention.
00:11Polish politician Mariana Schreiber has publicly thrown a portrait of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
00:19into a trash bin after drawing a Hitler-style mustache on it.
00:24The act has reignited a bitter dispute between Poland and Ukraine over World War II history.
00:31The video was released during the commemoration of Bloody Sunday on July 11.
00:37That date marks one of the darkest chapters in Polish history
00:41when the Ukrainian insurgent army carried out coordinated attacks on Polish villages in Volodymyr in 1943.
00:49According to Poland, up to 100,000 ethnic Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists between 1943 and 1944.
01:01Warsaw officially recognizes those killings as genocide.
01:05In the video, Schreiber accused Ukraine of glorifying followers of Stepan Bandera.
01:11She declared that Bandarites are not heroes, but a disgrace to humanity.
01:17She also said that despite the passing decades, Poland has never received a genuine apology for the massacres.
01:26After making those remarks, Schreiber crumpled the altered portrait of Zelensky and threw it into a trash bin.
01:32She said that the place for people who glorify criminals is in the trash can of history.
01:39The protest comes as diplomatic tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv continue to grow.
01:45The latest controversy began after President Zelensky granted an elite Ukrainian military unit the honorary title Heroes of the UPA.
01:55The decision drew sharp criticism from Polish leaders, who called it unacceptable.
02:01Polish officials have also warned that Ukraine's path to European Union membership will remain difficult
02:08as long as figures linked to the OUN and UPA continue to be honored.
02:14Another point of criticism has been the recent state reburial of OUN leader Andrei Melnyk, who cooperated with Nazi Germany
02:23during the war.
02:24Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly pointed to Ukraine's honoring of wartime nationalist figures as part of its long-standing claim that
02:33Kyiv glorifies Nazi collaborators.
02:36Moscow continues to cite that argument as one of the stated objectives behind its military campaign in Ukraine.
02:45The latest protest by Mariana Schreiber has once again brought decades-old historical wounds back into the spotlight,
02:53showing how the legacy of World War II continues to shape politics and relations in Eastern Europe today.
03:11Subscribe to OneIndia and never miss an update.
03:16Download the OneIndia app now.
Comments