Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico criticized the Ukrainian National Pantheon on 29 August and warned against honoring people associated with crimes on Polish civilians. The Pantheon Act was passed on 1 July and signed on 22 August, but does not indicate names. For Poland the fact about UPA victims and the honesty of relations with Kiev is at stake.
Fico hits Kiev's memory policy
Robert Fico appeared on 29 August in Banská Bystrica during the celebration of the 82nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising. Official communication of the Slovak Government confirms that the Prime Minister devoted his speech to combating Nazism and defending Slovakia's sovereignty. In the part concerning Ukraine he criticised the way the state pantheon of heroes was built.
As reported by ‘Rzeczpospolita’, Fico said that the fight for independency must not be separated from the work for participating in the Holocaust and killing Polish civilians. He besides warned against replacing the roles of perpetrators and victims. Those are crucial words, due to the fact that a memory dispute is not an academic discussion. It concerns simple justice towards the murdered and the foundation of Polish-Ukrainian relations.
National Pantheon without name list
However, the law passed must be precisely separated from the predictions. Ukrainian National Pantheon Act was adopted by the advanced Council on 1 July 2026 and was informed of its signing on 22 August. The paper creates a state memorial site for persons considered peculiarly worthy of independence, statehood, culture, discipline or defence of Ukraine. Does not contain a finished list of names.
The peculiar committee with representatives of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, historians and civilian society is to decide who will be honored. Center for east Studies assessedThat the pantheon will most likely include leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgency Army. This is simply a serious prediction, but inactive anticipating. Therefore, Polish diplomacy should respond to circumstantial candidatures and criteria, without adding to the Act content which is not in it.
Polish memory is not negotiated
Poles have all right to anticipate that those liable for crimes against civilians will not be portrayed as heroes without a dark card. Bloody Sunday, July 11, 1943 remains a symbol of the genocidal cleansing performed by OUN-UPA in Poles in Volyn and east Małopolska. The memory of victims cannot be the price for ongoing military or political cooperation.
It is not about taking Ukraine's right to its own tradition. It's the fact that sets the line between the state conflict and the execution of susceptible families. Kiev needs allies present against Russian aggression, but the alliance does not mean approval to relativize the crime. relationship between nations is built on the name of harm, exhumation, and worthy burial of victims. Recent ceremony of 55 CNS-UPA victims, including 26 children, shows that there are circumstantial people and families behind the dispute, not abstract symbols.
Good attention does not mean consent to the full Ficy line
Slovak Prime Minister combined criticism of Ukrainian memory policy with his own line towards Moscow. He argued that Russia must not be pushed out of Europe and accused the European Union of excessive focus on arms supplies. You request cold judgement here. Russia began a full-scale aggression on Ukraine in February 2022, and the right of the assaulted state to defend its sovereignty is not subject to discussion.
The Polish interest does not require the acceptance of the full package of Fica's views in order to admit the rightness of his remarks about the victims of the CNS-UPA. Warsaw should talk with its own voice: it should support Ukraine's independency towards Russia and, at the same time, powerfully request historical truth. If the names of people liable for crimes in Poles appear in the pantheon, the reaction of the Polish state must be quick, unambiguous and based on facts.
Source: Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic, Supreme Council of Ukraine, Republic of
