Polish law enforcement is investigating the destruction of a granite memorial to soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), after far-right member of the European Parliament Grzegorz Braun filmed himself and an associate smashing the monument near Dolhobychiv in eastern Poland.
According to the Polish outlet OKO.press, police have been investigating the incident since September 6. The memorial stands in the hamlet of Bialystok, in the Dolhobyczów commune of Lublin Voivodeship, on the site of a mass grave where Ukrainians were killed in 1946.
On September 10, Braun published a video showing him and another member of his party, a former police officer, destroying the monument. The footage shows the pair deliberately breaking the law, using axes and hammers to smash the granite obelisk.
The UPA was a paramilitary force that fought Soviet and Nazi forces during and after the Second World War, including clashes with the NKVD, the Soviet secret police agency that preceded the KGB.
Repeated Vandalism at the Memorial
The memorial complex has existed since the 1990s. Its current form, a granite block engraved with the names of the dead, has stood since 2019. The obelisk has been vandalized several times before.
In the summer of 2026, it was sprayed with paint and an arch decorating the stone was cut off. Ukraine's embassy in Poland officially condemned that act of vandalism at the time, saying that regardless of the difficult and tragic pages of shared history, burial sites and commemorative events should remain outside political disputes and should be treated with respect.
Prosecutors Investigating Possible Hate Crime
According to the outlet RMF24, the local prosecutor's office is also investigating the circumstances of the destruction of the monument and burial site of the UPA soldiers. The preliminary investigation concerns the insult of a group of Ukrainian nationality through damage to the resting place of those killed in battle with NKVD officers in Bialystok, in the Dolhobyczów commune.
Investigators said that on September 6, unknown perpetrators, acting because of the nationality of the dead, damaged the coat of arms and inscriptions carved on the monument, making them illegible. The offense carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Rafal Kawalec, a prosecutor and spokesperson for the district prosecutor's office in Zamość, said investigators had obtained a recording documenting the incident and had questioned witnesses. He said no charges had yet been filed, and did not rule out that a procedure to lift parliamentary immunity could be used if necessary.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Responds
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry press service told journalists that the conduct of certain Polish politicians was shameful and immoral, and could provoke nothing but shame and condemnation from any normal person.
The ministry said that political marginals in Poland had come up with nothing better than to fight with graves, at a time when a real war poses an existential threat to both Ukraine and Poland.
Ukrainian diplomats said they expected the competent Polish authorities to give the matter a proper legal assessment, to restore the damaged grave and other Ukrainian memory sites in Poland, and to prevent similar incidents in future.
The ministry said Ukraine consistently supports the same principle on both sides of the border, that Ukrainian memory sites in Poland and Polish memory sites in Ukraine must be protected, and that no one has the right to turn memory and respect for the dead into a circus show for political purposes.
Ukrainian diplomats also recalled a Polish proverb, saying that when there is nothing to attract attention, one must stage a show.
Ukrainian-Polish Relations
As reported by the news agency UNIAN, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hryhorii Tykhyi recently said the most critical moment in Ukrainian-Polish relations had already passed. The ministry has called on certain Polish politicians not to make anti-Ukrainian statements to serve their own electoral goals.
