He considers the death of 500 Ukrainians at Bucha to be genocide but won't describe the WWII-era slaughter of over 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, including the estimated 8,000 who were killed on "Bloody Sunday", the same for fear of an ultra-nationalist revolt if he dares to do so.
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Bucha. It was a genocide, recognized by everyone. They buried hundreds of people. They tortured people. We found the grave. There were, I believe, around 500 people. When we liberated those towns near Kyiv, there emerged this, you know, this kind of hatred for the Russians, right…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 22, 2026
Ukraine refuses to recognize the WWII-era slaughter of over 100,000 Poles in the Volhynia Region and the surrounding areas by Nazi-allied Ukrainian ultra-nationalists as genocide. In fact, he even renamed an elite commando unit in May after the perpetrators, the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA). This sparked a political crisis with Poland that polarized public opinion on Ukraine and Ukrainians to this day. Their views



