The faction of the Law and Justice (PiS) party in the Polish city of Kielce sent a resolution to its chairman Maciej Jakubczyk, in which they appeal to the mayor of Vinnitsa with a request to rename a street in the city named after the ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism Stepan Bandera. This was reported on June 10 by the Polish regional channel Telewizja Świętokrzyska.
The document published by the channel states that Kielce and Vinnitsa are connected by a 70-year history of partnership, the scale of which the Polish city demonstrated after the start of the full-scale invasion of the aggressor country Russia into Ukraine. The deputies recalled how they helped Ukrainians, in particular the residents of Vinnitsa, but noted that “true friendship also requires dialogue on complex and painful topics.” In this context, they pointed out that Poland links the figure of Bandera and the legacy of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA) with mass crimes against civilians, particularly in Volyn.
PiS expressed the belief that there are other personalities in Ukraine whose names can be called Bandera Street in Vinnitsa, and emphasized that “such a gesture on the part of the city of Vinnitsa, made in the spirit of mutual respect and historical truth, would become an iconic symbol of the maturity of the partnership” of the parties.
The publication Slawa wrote about the scandal regarding the decommissioned buses that Kielce was supposed to transfer to Vinnitsa. After local deputies criticized the head of the city, Agata Voida, the mayor of Vinnitsa, Sergei Morgunov, decided to withdraw the request for this transport. The media drew attention to the fact that in the future these buses were supposed to run along Bandera Street.
