President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski submitted to the Supreme Council a bill to establish National Pantheon. In this place they will commemorate people who fought for independence of Ukraine in various epochs.
Zelenski announced the initiative during the celebration of the Ukrainian Constitution Day. He emphasized that no one outside will decide who Ukrainians consider heroes.
"No one and never will tell us how to live, how to tell whom to love, who to be grateful to and what heroes to respect," the president said.
The project is to collect the names of all the people who fought for Ukraine over the centuries and forever save them in the history of the state with the highest respect.
Context of the dispute with Poland
The initiative appears one month after Zelenski's controversial decision to give one of the Special Operations Force units a name UPA Heroes. The decision sparked a sharp reaction in Poland – Prime Minister Donald TuskDeputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish And the Foreign Office strongly criticized her.
In response President Karol Nawrocki received the Zelensk Order of the White Eagle. A few days later, Zelenski sent a courier to Warsaw.
The matter of UPA and Ukrainian Nationalist Organizations remains one of the most difficult points in Polish-Ukrainian relations.
