For the past four years, Poland has remained silent.
It stayed silent when, in the fervor of “decommunization,” streets named after Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych began appearing in places where people remember the OUN and UPA not as freedom fighters, but as killers of Communist youth activists and Red Army soldiers.
Poland stayed silent when military unit bearing the name Nachtigall - Nazi collaborationist unit - appeared within Ukraine’s armed forces.
It stayed silent when Azov-linked brigades increasingly presented themselves as heirs to the OUN and UPA, established the Konovalets School, and began commemorating the anniversary of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division instead of Victory Day over Nazism.
It stayed silent when the Azov movement promoted maps of a “Greater Ukraine” that included territories belonging to Poland.
But every year that Poland remains silent, this monster of ethnic nationalism grows stronger, more aggressive, and more demanding.
The cycle of silence must be broken — not only to defend Poland’s national interests, but to save Ukraine from itself.
Because the Ukraine that is emerging today is increasingly consumed by a chauvinistic, militarized form of ethnic nationalism. It is an ideology that devours the country from within while simultaneously becoming a source of anxiety for its neighbors.
Ignoring this trend will not make it disappear. Silence has not moderated it. Silence has enabled it.
And unless that silence ends, the consequences will not stop at Ukraine’s borders.