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A Twitter post commemorating Ukrainian World War Two nationalist leader Stepan Bandera has been taken down from the website of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) after protests from Poland, a Polish minister said on Tuesday.
Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a deputy foreign minister, said that Poland opposes any celebration of Bandera. While the Ukrainian is hailed as a freedom fighter by some in his native land, he is also held responsible for the murder of around 100,000 Poles by his Ukrainian Insurgent Army in what became known as the Volhynia Massacre.
“There is no acceptance of commemorations of Stepan Bandera by the Polish state,” Mularczyk said on Polish Radio. He added that the disappearance of the post from the Verkhovna Rada website indicated that the Ukrainian side “has heard Poland’s voice.”
On Sunday, the Verkhovna Rada published on Twitter a photo of the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, next to a portrait of Bandera and quoted several passages from books written by him.
On Monday, discontent with the Rada’s move was expressed by the Polish foreign ministry and the Polish prime minister.