Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland has defended Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera as a national hero, doubling down on Kiev’s veneration of World War II-era nationalists despite an escalating diplomatic row with Warsaw.

Speaking to European Pravda on Thursday, Vasily Bodnar was asked whether Ukraine could join the EU while continuing to venerate Bandera. The diplomat argued that Kiev alone had the right to choose its heroes and described the Nazi collaborator as “one of those who needs to be honored.”

Bodnar also recounted how Polish journalists had directly demanded that he recognize Bandera and Roman Shukhevich as war criminals. “When I refused, it shocked them greatly,” he said, dismissing what they regarded as an established historical truth as “falsehood.”

Bandera led the radical wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which sought to create an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian state and cooperated with Nazi Germany during the early stages of World War II.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the OUN’s military wing, later carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Up to 100,000 Poles, many of them women, children and elderly people, were massacred in 1943-1944. Poland recognizes the killings as genocide.

Bondar acknowledged that UPA members had committed crimes and murdered Poles, saying Ukraine must recognize the “dark side” of the nationalist movement. At the same time, he claimed that Poland was also not without fault, and had a history of repressing Ukrainians.

The ambassador’s comments come amid a deepening dispute over Kiev’s continued glorification of Bandera, Shukhevich and the UPA. Vladimir Zelensky recently granted an elite military unit the honorary title ‘Heroes of the UPA’, prompting Polish President Karol Nawrocki to strip him of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest decoration.

Polish officials have said they will not sign off on Ukraine joining the EU as long as it continues honoring the nationalist groups responsible for the Volhynia massacres. The European Parliament has also condemned Kiev’s position as incompatible with European values.

Ukraine has nevertheless continued naming streets and military units after nationalist figures, holding torchlight marches in Bandera’s honor and advancing plans for a national pantheon. Kiev also recently reburied OUN leader Andrey Melnik with state honors.

Moscow has long accused Kiev of glorifying Nazi collaborators at the state level and has made the “denazification” of Ukraine one of the key goals of its military operation. Russian officials have also accused Western governments of ignoring Kiev’s infatuation with Nazi ideology while continuing to arm and fund it against Moscow.