The irony would be exquisite if it weren’t so damned predictable. Here we have Volodymyr Zelensky, the man who has spent the past year as the West’s favourite symbol of resolute resistance, suddenly scrambling to placate a furious Warsaw over something as seemingly obscure as a military unit’s name. The unit in question: Ukrainian SS Division Galizien. Yes, that SS. The one with the runic flashes and the association with genocide. The one that fought alongside the Nazis. And now, in a fit of historical amnesia, Ukraine’s defence ministry has decided to rebrand its new territorial defence forces with the same name, apparently forgetting that Poland—Ukraine’s most vital ally in this war—has rather long memories about such things.
To understand the present, one must understand the past. The Galizien Division, formed in 1943 from Ukrainian volunteers under German auspices, participated in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising and the liquidation of Polish villages. Its legacy is a raw nerve for Poles, who see it as collaboration with the regime that murdered millions of their countrymen. For Ukrainians, however, the division is often viewed through a different lens: as a symbol of a separate Ukrainian identity, forged in the crucible of a world war that saw Ukrainians fighting against both Stalin and Hitler. This is the problem of multiple truths. Poland sees a Nazi unit; Ukraine sees a band of patriots, misguided perhaps, but fighting for a free Ukraine.
Now, in the heat of a modern war, Zelensky’s government has blundered into this minefield. The defence ministry’s decision to name a new territorial defence brigade after the Galizien Division was, to put it charitably, tone-deaf. Warsaw’s reaction was swift and sharp. Poland’s deputy foreign minister called it an error, recalling that the division bore “responsibility for the genocide of the Polish population.” Zelensky, who has built his reputation on deft diplomacy, suddenly found himself apologising, promising to “translate the historical context for Ukrainian society.” But why was this blunder made in the first place? The answer lies in the politics of memory, a battlefield as fierce as any trench line.
Ukraine’s national identity is still being constructed, painfully, in real time. Since independence, Kyiv has sought to build a pantheon of heroes that includes controversial figures like Stepan Bandera, whose followers collaborated with the Nazis. This is not to equate all Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism, but to point out that historical complexities are being flattened into simplistic narratives of resistance. In a time of war, this flattening intensifies. The need for heroic symbols becomes desperate. The Galizien Division, for some, represents Ukrainian military tradition, even if that tradition is stained. But to Poland, it is simply the SS. And Poland, let us not forget, is Ukraine’s gateway to the West, its source of weapons, its diplomatic shield. Offending Poland is not just bad history; it is bad strategy.
The broader lesson here is about the fragility of alliances. The West, for all its talk of standing with Ukraine, is a collection of nations with their own ghosts. Poland’s history of victimhood, both under Nazi and Soviet rule, makes it hypersensitive to any perceived glorification of those who harmed it. Zelensky, normally a master of communication, has momentarily forgotten that allies are not unconditional. They have red lines. And one of those lines is the memorialisation of former SS divisions.
What does this episode tell us about the intellectual decadence of our age? It tells us that historical literacy is in short supply. It tells us that the seductive myth of the plucky nation fighting for freedom can paper over uncomfortable truths. It tells us that, in the echo chamber of war, nuance is the first casualty. Zelensky will likely resolve this row through quiet diplomacy and a renaming. But the damage is done. The ghost of the Galizien Division has been summoned, and it will not be easily exorcised.
In the end, this is a very Victorian problem. The Victorians were obsessed with the lessons of history, seeing it as a guide to action. We, by contrast, prefer to ignore history until it explodes in our faces. Zelensky has just been given a history lesson. The question is whether the rest of Ukraine—and the West—will learn from it.
