“Since yesterday, the President of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland (ZZU) Mr. Mirosław Skórka has been appearing in the media, shamelessly manipulating and insulting the President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki. He speaks about the nationalist attitude of the President and claims that his decisions align with the Kremlin’s policy. What hypocrisy and, to put it mildly, what a lack of sensitivity!” – reads the statement of the spokesman for President Karol Nawrocki.
In a lengthy social media post, the spokesman for President Karol Nawrocki referred to an interview on TVP in liquidation, in which Mirosław Skórka criticized the presidential veto regarding 800 Plus for unemployed Ukrainian citizens. He called the president’s decision “a failure, a disaster for the model of our patriotism.”
Leśkiewicz: hypocrisy and lack of sensitivity
Today, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz also addressed Skórka’s words on social media. “Since yesterday, the President of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland Mr. Mirosław Skórka has been appearing in the media, shamelessly manipulating and insulting the President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki. He speaks about the nationalist attitude of the President and claims that his decisions align with the Kremlin’s policy,” he wrote in the opening.
What hypocrisy and, to put it mildly, what a lack of sensitivity! It was Karol Nawrocki, back when he was President of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), who was placed on the wanted list by the authorities of the Russian Federation by the Putin regime for removing Soviet propaganda objects. Nationalist tendencies have long been strong and are growing stronger in Ukraine, including among Ukrainians living in Poland. It was Ukrainian nationalism under the banner of war criminal Stepan Bandera that led to genocide, the massacre of more than 100,000 Polish women, children, and the elderly, Leśkiewicz reminded.
And further: “Today these criminals are treated in Ukraine as heroes, while the remains of our murdered compatriots lie in nameless death pits. The Ukrainian authorities do not allow the systemic launch of search and exhumation works.”
The presidential spokesman also stressed that “Mr. Skórka wants to teach us patriotism. Us Poles, who after 123 years of bondage regained freedom in 1918, paid for with the blood of thousands of victims. It is also worth reminding the President of the Union about the Polish victory and the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920.”
And later, about the fight against Soviet enslavement during World War II. Then, after 1945, when for the next 45 years we became a country dependent on the Soviet Union, about our sacrificial struggle to regain sovereignty. After Mr. Skórka’s statements, champagne corks popped in the Kremlin. The words of the President of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland fit into the Kremlin’s political narrative, and I do not believe they are shared by Ukrainians living in our country,” it reads.
Leśkiewicz assesses that “these words are an expression of personal phobias and prejudices that harm Polish-Ukrainian relations. They are also proof of a complete lack of gratitude for the help provided by Poland after the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022.”