Polish PM Donald Tusk has called for a hard business line instead of empathy after the Ukrainian leader honored nationalist figures blamed for massacres of Poles.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Warsaw’s support for Kiev could become increasingly driven by hard national interests. The criticism follows Zelensky’s move to honor World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries responsible for massacres of Poles and Jews by naming a commando unit after them.

In May, Zelensky decreed that the Special Operations Center North would bear the honorary title ‘Heroes of the UPA,’ referring to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

The OUN sought to establish an ethnically and religiously homogeneous Ukrainian state and collaborated with Nazi Germany during the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The UPA was formed in 1942 following a split between much of the OUN leadership and the Germans.

Ukrainian nationalists killed an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine from 1943-44. The massacres remain a major source of tension between Warsaw and Kiev.

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We expect it pisses off most people whose ancestors perished under the Nazis or who fought them in allied armies and in resistance movements. Why does NZ continue to support this disgusting neo-Nazi regime? Ask your local MP that. —Eds