President Karol Nawrocki had some harsh words following the revelation that symbols associated with the former far-right Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera had been present at a concert in Warsaw.
According to RMF24, Warsaw police detained 109 people at a concert by Belarusian artist Maks Korzh at the National Stadium in Warsaw on Saturday.
Charges include possession of drugs, bringing pyrotechnics into the stadium, breaking into the area of a mass event, and violating the bodily integrity of the facility’s security staff. Seventy-two people will be charged with crimes, 37 with misdemeanors. In addition, 50 people were fined a total of PLN 11,450.
However, the worst offense may have violated the constitution, and police are analyzing surveillance footage and other video proof of people who chanted slogans affiliated with Ukrainian nationalists, as well as waving flags associated with the radical, militant Ukrainian Insurgent Party (UPA).
The flag with red and black colors and a trident was used by fighters in the UPA and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), which created the former. The UPA is responsible for the massacre of Poles in Volhynia.
“Of course, Bandera symbols in Polish public spaces (…) are outrageous. They are unacceptable in Polish public spaces, and we should react very decisively to such things by simply expelling such people,” said President Karol Nawrocki, as cited by wPolityce.
🇺🇦🇵🇱 During a concert in Warsaw Ukrainians displayed the Bandera red-and-black (Blood and Soil) UPA flag.
This caused a scandal in Poland, as this is a symbol for the Volhyn massacre.
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pic.twitter.com/wkHITp7bGI
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) August 11, 2025“While still president of the Institute of National Remembrance, I was involved in preparing a draft amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, which would expand the list of persecuted symbols to include the red and black flag. This is something that needs to be done in Poland. I know this bill is in the Polish Sejm. I hope that the parliamentary majority will finally adopt it,” Nawrocki said.
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian far-right leader, known for establishing the radical militant faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B. He grew up in Poland and witnessed the brief rise and fall of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, with its defeat by Poland in 1919 and subsequent takeover by Poland of his home region (previously part of the dissolved Austro-Hungarian Empire).
Bandera was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Polish Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki, but was released after Poland was invaded in 1939.
Bandera openly collaborated with Hitler during WWII in the hopes of establishing an independent Ukraine, and he and his group are widely assumed to have known about, if not participated in, various pogroms against Jews and other minorities.
When the Nazis turned against Bandera and his aspirations for a Ukrainian state, he found himself a political prisoner in a German concentration camp. It was at this time, in 1942, that an army organized by OUN-B, the aforementioned UPA, massacred some 100,000 Poles in Volhynia.
Asked about Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s announcement that over 60 people would be deported from Poland over the concert incident, Nawrocki said, “If such a decision has been made, then such a decision is good.”
Tusk has announced that proceedings have been initiated to deport 63 people, including 57 Ukrainians and 6 Belarusians, stressing that the state will act swiftly.
“However, under no circumstances can anti-Ukrainian sentiment be allowed to flare,” the prime minister stated, adding that he expects Ukrainian authorities to ensure the same regarding any anti-Polish speech or actions.
Asked if he believed this case could have been a Russian provocation, the Polish president said simply: “We are aware that in Ukraine, Bandera symbols, including in public education, are not described in a way that is consistent with historical research. (…) They were murderers, degenerates, it must be said, who are responsible for the deaths of approximately 120,000 of our fellow citizens, our ancestors, so regardless of the reason for this shameful behavior, we must react to it decisively and we must also deal with the bill that is in the Polish Parliament to penalize it and prevent such situations from happening again.”
