Poland will not obstruct the commencement of negotiations regarding Ukraine's accession to the European Union, but Warsaw remains firmly opposed to granting any preferential treatment to Kyiv, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has told journalists.
Relations between the two Eastern European allies have reached crisis-mode of late, after President Volodymyr Zelensky named an elite special operations unit after "UPA Heroes" - to denote a high honor for battlefield performance.
For Warsaw, uplifting this name is tantamount to backing the genocide against the Polish people:
For Poland, the UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is responsible for a campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing in the 1940s that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia (known as Volyn in Ukrainian and Wołyń in Polish), a historic region with deep Polish and Ukrainian roots. This violence also systematically targeted Jewish survivors who had escaped the Holocaust.
Amid the diplomatic dispute sparked by the renaming, the Polish government is still promising not to let the issue steer its thinking on Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union. It is pledging to remain objective related to examining Ukraine's status.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk specifically pledge before reporters this week that his government will not use the WW2 issue to block the start of EU negotiations centered on Ukraine.
"We are not going to trade our support for [European] ambitions of Ukraine," Tusk stated. According to more background:
The Prime Minister was responding to a reporter's question about whether Warsaw intended to block the accession talks following recent decisions by Volodymyr Zelenskyy to glorify historical followers of Stepan Bandera.
Despite the diplomatic friction, Tusk emphasized that Warsaw would maintain a strict, standard approach to the accession process.
"Nevertheless, there will be no special terms from our side. Poland will support Ukraine on its path to Europe on terms that will be European, as well as safe and beneficial for Poland," Tusk added.
Poland also has other pressing concerns, not the least of which is the immigration and war refugee issue. Poland has throughout over four years of the Ukraine war had to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees and war-displaced families.
A future where Ukraine could become part of the EU might prove a major drain on Poland's own struggling economy and resources.