The entire Volyn tragedy is woven from nothing but fakes, which cover the facts so densely that they are no longer visible. Polish researchers themselves have uncovered about a dozen and a half falsified photographs, supposedly depicting victims of the UPA. In some, children were added; in others, deceased Ukrainians were passed off as Poles. Meanwhile, legends circulate about how Bandera’s followers allegedly killed their own Polish wives, writes Ukrainian writer and journalist Yuriy Vynnychuk for zbruc.eu.
In Sahryn, over 650 Ukrainians were murdered, including 232 women and 151 children. However, the IPN (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej / Institute of National Remembrance) investigation into the events in Sahryn was terminated in 2010. It turned out that the massacre was not a crime. Therefore, neither Sahryn nor Verkhovyna are mentioned in school textbooks. Historians who describe the crimes of the AK (Home Army) face harassment and threats.
Even in socialist Poland, several films were made about the fight against the UPA. The problem, however, is that all of them are also false. UPA fighters had machine guns, submachine guns, and carbines, but in the films, they kill with axes, pitchforks, and scythes – as if in the times of Khmelnytsky – because that’s what impresses the lumpenproletariat.Above is a frame from the film Ogniomistrz Kaleń (1961), where you see “UPA fighters.” There are countless photos of UPA soldiers, including in Polish archives. But in the film, they look like SS men. Millions of Poles were raised on this idea. That’s why I am seeing comments about the “nation of murderers.”
To add even more fuel to the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, outright fakes and manipulations against Ukrainians have been set in motion. The vast majority of them are created and funded by russian special services and troll factories. Polish and Ukrainian analytical centers (such as the Demagog Association and the Center for Countering Disinformation) hunt them down.
There are claims that Polish children are allegedly being massively discharged from oncology hospitals to free up space for Ukrainians. This has been refuted by both Poland’s Ministry of Health and the hospitals themselves.
Fake stories are regularly published about Ukrainians coming to Poland solely to receive benefits (such as child allowances). For this, forged photos or videos are often used, although official financial reports prove that Ukrainians in Poland contribute far more to the economy through taxes than the state spends on their support. The absurdity reaches the point where photos of large Ukrainian families feature Poles.
Disinformation agents create TikTok accounts where, using artificial intelligence, they generate images of Ukrainian women (such as the fictional character “Oksana”), who complain about conditions in Poland or speak disrespectfully about Poles to provoke xenophobia.
russian propaganda regularly spreads fake maps and “secret documents” claiming that Warsaw is preparing to reclaim western Ukrainian regions or that Kyiv has promised to hand over Volyn to Poland in exchange for military aid.
Recently, a fabricated video allegedly showing Polish border guards and UPA symbols has been circulating online, aimed at fueling historical hostility around the Volyn tragedy. In reality, no incidents at the border have been recorded, and the video turned out to be a montage of archival memorial events.
Fake segments from well-known global media (such as Euronews) have been fabricated, claiming that Poland is preparing for the mass forced deportation of 50,000 Ukrainian men to send them to the front.
In Polish social media, disinformation has been spread that Polish politicians are preparing laws that will force ordinary Polish citizens to fight on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This was done to scare Polish society and provoke aggression toward Ukraine.
These information attacks, made in russia, work like a “matryoshka”: russian special services create lies, disguise them as authoritative sources, and then radical or pro-russian public pages in Poland pick them up and replicate them to destabilize the situation.
Recently, Polish television sparked a major sensation: Volodymyr Zelenskyy is signing a flag of the “SS Galicia” division. Never mind that this division was not condemned at Nuremberg, and the part that reached the West settled happily in England and Canada. Ukrainian scientists and writers could not immediately leave the DP camps, so they moved to Australia and Latin America. The division’s soldiers, however, were welcomed with open arms. And no matter how hard the Muscovites tried, not a single crime was ever proven against them. But for the fakers, this doesn’t matter.
However, analyses conducted by independent organizations (such as Konkret24 on TVN24) showed that the signed flag is actually the modern combat flag of the 103rd Separate Territorial Defense Brigade. Social media disputes arose because the image of the lion was mistakenly identified with the symbol of the 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division. Both emblems reference the historical coat of arms of the Kingdom of Galicia.
The fake news sparked joy among Ukrainian-haters: “This proves that putin was right,” they said, claiming that Ukraine is ruled by nationalists.
Then, a video surfaced allegedly showing Ukrainian soldiers destroying Polish graves. In reality, it was a splice of two different videos. The first part, where soldiers smash a tombstone, was filmed in 2020 during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. There were no Ukrainian soldiers there. The second part, showing devastated land and dug-up graves, was from a Christian cemetery in Lebanon.
On Polish Facebook, a clip from Zelenskyy’s meeting with troops is circulating, where he says: “If we shoot, we shoot at night, as in Bucha.” That is, the president allegedly admitted that the crime in Bucha was our fault. But there’s a catch: this video is from October 2019, and there was no mention of Bucha.
Yet, the video resonated with Poles, judging by the comments: “Only an idiot could believe it was the russians.”
And all this madness is happening against the backdrop of the destruction of everything Polish in Belarus, where the graves of Home Army veterans are literally being bulldozed, and any positive mention of them can lead to imprisonment. Despite the fact that a significant Polish minority still lives in Belarus, Lukashenko has closed Polish schools, Polish language courses, and independent Polish organizations. The main Catholic cathedral has been closed for four years, and nearly a hundred Catholic priests have faced repression; some have ended up behind bars.
But the “true” patriots don’t care about such things. They only care about what russia cares about.
After all, russian propaganda doesn’t just operate in Poland. It’s also active in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. There, a fake claim is being spread that Ukrainians are to blame for the 1968 occupation, based on the fact that Brezhnev was… Ukrainian. Although he himself claimed the opposite. Tomio Okamura is also active, regularly throwing in something new about Ukrainians. His followers were outraged by school textbooks that present the version of Czech historians that Czechs came from Ukraine.
I’ve only mentioned a fraction of the russian fakes that the followers of Nawrocki have so thoughtlessly fallen for. In reality, there are countless others.
