PiS candidate Czarnek demands Poland block Ukraine's EU path until Kyiv renounces 'Nazi ideology'

The announcement in Lublin

On 11 July 2026, the 83rd anniversary of the 'Bloody Sunday' that marked the peak of the Volhynia massacre, Law and Justice (PiS) vice-president and candidate for prime minister Przemysław Czarnek laid flowers at the Monument to the Victims of Volhynia in Lublin and used the occasion to launch a sharp political initiative. He announced that PiS will submit a draft Sejm resolution expressing 'opposition to Ukraine's membership in the European Union in connection with the glorification of the perpetrators of the Volhynia crime, the Volhynia genocide.' The document, he said, demands that the Polish government take all actions opposing any further development of Ukraine's EU integration process.

Czarnek framed the resolution as both a memorial act and a forward-looking political demand. 'In this resolution, apart from commemorating the victims, we demand that the government of the Republic of Poland take all actions opposing any development of Ukraine's integration with the European Union,' he stated at the Lublin ceremony.

A Ukraine with Banderism, with the glorification of genocidaires who committed an unimaginably brutal crime against the Polish nation, with the glorification of such people, will not enter the European Union.

The historical backdrop

The date carries heavy symbolic weight. On 11 July 1943, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) launched coordinated attacks on Polish civilian settlements across Volhynia. Estimates cited in the sources indicate that roughly 150 localities (some sources say 99) were attacked in a single day in the Horokhiv, Volodymyr, and Kovel districts. The massacres, which targeted Poles regardless of age or sex, are regarded as the culminating moment of the Volhynia slaughter. The Sejm only established 11 July as the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the Second Polish Republic in 2025, under the current governing coalition.

'A Nazi ideology reborn'

Czarnek went beyond the historical commemoration and directly accused Ukraine of reviving Nazi ideology. He pointed to President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after the Heroes of the UPA. 'If someone today calls them heroes, it is no different than naming a military unit in Germany after Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, or other German-Nazi formations,' Czarnek said. He argued that German Nazism, which aimed at ethnic cleansing and a pure race on lands inhabited by Germans, 'is no different from what the Ukrainians wanted to do and in effect did.'

We have an absolutely moral duty to shout to all European and world capitals about stopping the rebirth of Nazi ideology in Ukraine. It cannot be called anything else.

He repeated the same line at a separate event in Domostawa (Podkarpackie Voivodeship), where he joined a cycling pilgrimage to the Memorial of Genocide Victims in the Eastern Borderlands. 'This is our cry to all European capitals to stop Zelensky,' he said there, adding that 'Ukraine has its own heroes, and invoking genocidaires is unworthy of any nation fighting for its freedom and independence.'

Government and expert pushback

The announcement drew immediate fire. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, speaking after a ceremony in Ołyka, Ukraine, dismissed Czarnek's demand. 'The government does not need to be called upon by Mr. Czarnek for anything,' he said, reminding journalists that it was the current coalition's Sejm that established the 11 July remembrance day in 2025. 'Our predecessors ruled for eight years and were unable to do that,' he added. Kosiniak-Kamysz stressed that truth is necessary for cooperation and friendship: 'Without truth there is no such friendship and cooperation that creates one alliance, one union.'

Economist and former presidential adviser Professor Ryszard Bugaj was harsher. In comments to Fakt, he called Czarnek's initiative 'pure populism, aimed at anti-Ukrainian sentiment' and added, 'I suspect it is a race with Grzegorz Braun.' Bugaj also criticised Jarosław Kaczyński's decision to designate Czarnek as PiS's candidate for prime minister, calling it a mistake. He further cautioned that Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Saturday announcement about creating a 'Wall of Memory' in Warsaw, while superficially positive, 'in practice gives fuel to politicians like Przemysław Czarnek to keep playing on anti-Ukrainian sentiments.'

I think that greater restraint would be better in these matters, one that does not heat up social emotions. It would also be good if people like Przemysław Czarnek did not deal not only with international politics, but more broadly — with politics at all.

What comes next

Czarnek confirmed that the draft resolution will be tabled at the next Sejm sitting. He also expressed hope that the Domostawa cycling pilgrimage would become an annual event inscribed in the calendar of initiatives to honour the murdered and to 'erect a dam against the Banderite ideology in Ukraine, which is identical to Nazi ideology.' The resolution text, as summarised by PiS-aligned media, links Ukraine's EU accession path directly to its approach to historical memory, demanding that Kyiv renounce the cult of Banderism before any integration can proceed.