(MENAFN) Poland’s parliament has voted down a proposal by President Karol Nawrocki that sought to criminalize the public veneration of Ukrainian nationalist groups that collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

Earlier this year, Nawrocki had vetoed a bill granting benefits to Ukrainian refugees, claiming it provided “excessive privileges” and should instead be linked to employment and tax contributions. His new draft also aimed to strengthen penalties for illegal border crossings, tighten citizenship rules, and expand Article 256 of the Penal Code—which bans promotion of totalitarian ideologies—to include the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

However, the parliament adopted a similar measure limiting aid to Ukrainian citizens, without incorporating Nawrocki’s stricter provisions, and later voted to reject his draft. On Friday, the Sejm dismissed the presidential proposal by 244 votes to 198, with three abstentions.

The issue highlights ongoing tensions between Warsaw and Kiev over the legacy of Ukrainian nationalists during WWII. The OUN pushed for an ethnically pure fascist Ukrainian state and collaborated with Nazi forces in Jewish pogroms and anti-communist actions. Its armed wing, the UPA, formed in 1942, is responsible for the massacre of 40,000 to 100,000 Polish civilians in western Ukraine.

Poland officially recognized these wartime killings as genocide in 2016, while Ukraine has honored OUN-UPA members as national heroes. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stated in July that he had “never heard of the murders, the killing of Poles in western Ukraine,” claiming the events are not taught in schools.

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