Tusk government envoy's wartime-victims remarks at Volhynia commemoration trigger political storm
Chargé d'affaires Piotr Łukasiewicz sparked outrage by referencing interwar Polish state violence alongside the Volhynia genocide; Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski defended him, branding critics nationalist sectarians.
The commemoration
On 11 July 2026, Polish and Ukrainian officials gathered in Ołyka, Volhynia Oblast, to mark the 83rd anniversary of the Volhynia massacre, a coordinated campaign by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that killed roughly 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The delegation included Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Polish chargé d'affaires to Ukraine, Colonel Piotr Łukasiewicz. The ceremony fell on the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the Second Polish Republic, centred on the so-called Bloody Sunday of 11 July 1943.
The controversial speech
During his address, Łukasiewicz bowed to Polish victims but continued with a passage that dominated the weekend's news cycle.
Bowing my head before the Polish victims of Ukrainian violence in Volhynia, I cannot fail to mention the Ukrainian victims of violence by the Polish state on the territories of the former Second Republic before and during the war. Everything that happened during World War II was terrible and unnecessary. I am not, however, creating symmetry nor equating the numbers and quality of suffering. I am simply saying that we remember and must remember the past, and what in that past was shameful.
Critics argued that the rhetorical structure, regardless of the disclaimer, created an impression of moral equivalence between the genocide and scattered abuses by the pre-war Polish state.
Backlash from officials and commentators
Former Polish ambassador to Israel and the US Marek Magierowski called the remarks incompetent and a failure of diplomatic instinct, stating that such comparisons could be made by historians or journalists but not by the Republic's highest representative in Ukraine during a period of heightened bilateral tension. Marcin Przydacz, head of the Presidential International Policy Bureau, said the episode laid bare problems with the corps of mission chiefs dispatched by the current foreign ministry leadership, adding that the constitution gives the president the final say on such nominations and that the president's prior refusals should now surprise no one.
Jerzy Kwaśniewski, president of the Ordo Iuris institute, posted on X that there were only two interpretations: either the diplomat acted against government policy and should face consequences, or he was executing the foreign ministry's line and would stay. Historian Krzysztof Kloc argued that any mental construct linking pre-war Polish minority policy toward Ukrainians with the Volhynia genocide spoke poorly of the speaker's psychological condition.
Sikorski's intervention
Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski did not apologise or distance the ministry. Instead, he proposed a third interpretation and attacked the diplomat's critics.
There is a third option, namely that Colonel Łukasiewicz, who risked his life for the fatherland under Russian bombs, spoke in the Christian spirit of 'We forgive and ask for forgiveness.' Because, in the face of a common threat, he is working for reconciliation. And some nationalistic sectarians are setting brotherly nations against each other, serving entirely different interests.
The minister's phrasing, particularly the term nationalistic sectarians, intensified the dispute. The PiS parliamentary caucus chair Mariusz Błaszczak addressed the absent reaction of Defence Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz, who was physically present but did not publicly object to Łukasiewicz's words.
Poles have the right to know: does the government today represent such a position? I expect an unequivocal answer and an adequate reaction from the defence minister. The memory of the victims of genocide cannot be relativised.
Political ramifications
By 12 July, the prime minister's office had not issued a statement. The episode exposed friction between the presidential palace and the foreign ministry over ambassadorial appointments, revived questions about the government's stance toward Kyiv's historical narrative, and placed Defence Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz, a potential presidential contender, at the centre of the fallout. The controversy also illustrated how the approaching 83rd anniversary of Bloody Sunday continues to test Warsaw's ability to balance historical accountability with the wartime alliance against Russia.
