Polish parliamentarian defends Ukraine's EU ambitions, despite differing perspectives on Volyn tragedy

The Volynian tragedy refers to a period of killings carried out by Ukrainian partisans during the latter years of the Second World War, primarily against people of Polish decent in Nazi-occupied Ukraine and Poland. Poland and Ukraine disagree on the severity of the crimes committed, with Poland calling the period a 'massacre' and accusing the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Banderites (OUN-B) of committing genocide against Poles.

Ukraine has denied the claim of genocide, noting that partisan units were not a formal state and were largely independent actors acting outside of any centralized authority. Ukrainian historians have also pointed to reprisal killings carried out by Polish forces in the immediate post-war years, noting that similarly to how western Ukraine has been largely purged of Polish residence, eastern Poland has likewise lost nearly all of its historical Ukrainian population.

Reconciliation efforts between Ukraine and Poland on the Volyn tragedy were initially hampered by the taboo nature of the tragedy during the Soviet Union, though the two states have attended joint commemoration events in recent years.

"If you ask me whether Ukraine should be a member of the EU, regardless of this or that, then yes, Ukraine must be an EU member," Hołownia said in response to a question posed by a Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist.

"But we will continue to have some differing perspectives between us and the Ukrainians on [the Volhynian massacre], about our history. And we will continue to consider this going forward, but already within the security ecosystem of the European Union."

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, during a visit to the Polish city of Olsztyn to meet with his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski, noted that Olsztyn was used used a resettlement point for Ukrainians forcibly expelled from southeastern Poland during Operation Vistula in 1947.

"You know, there was this Operation Vistula, and you know that all these Ukrainians were forcibly evicted from Ukrainian territories in order to live in, in particular, in Olsztyn," he explained.

"But I am not talking about this. If we start to go digging through history today, then the nature of our discussions would be completely different, and we would be able to very deeply embarrass ourselves through history and needle each other on the bad things that Poles have done to Ukrainians, and Ukrainians to Poles."

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry later clarified that the Minister's statement was not evidence of Ukrainian territorial aspersions against Poland.

Following this, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk  expressed his "unambiguously negative" assessment of Kuleba's statement and said that Ukraine will not become an EU member without Poland's assent, and that Ukraine "must correspond to all standards."