It’s Unsurprising That A Popular Ukrainian Outlet Laments The Loss Of “Zakerzonia” To Poland

Ukrainian officials are expected to encourage the popularization of these unofficial territorial claims with clandestine German support in order to wield them as leverage for rebalancing relations with Poland, whose rapid US-backed rise worries both of them, after the current conflict with Russia ends.

Ukraine’s Espreso TV, which is famous for livestreaming “EuroMaidan”, published an opinion peace in early December lamenting the loss of what ultra-nationalists consider to be “Zakerzonia”. This refers to the strip of land just west of the Curzon Line in Poland that they regard as historically Ukrainian due to the presence of many Orthodox East Slavs there till the end of World War II. It was also under the control of “Old (‘Kievan’) Rus” before becoming part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and then Poland.

The article coincided with the anniversary of the Allied Supreme War Council’s proposal on 8 December 1919 that later became known as the Curzon Line due to the efforts of former British Foreign Secretary Lord George Curzon to make it the Polish-Bolshevik border during the height of their war in 1920. The gist is that this proposal, which later became the Polish-Soviet border after World War II at Stalin’s suggestion, legitimized Poland’s control over the “Zakerzonian” subregions of Podlasie and Chelm Land.

Vice President of Poland’s National Movement (Ruch Narodowy in Polish) Pawel Usiadek, who also serves as a member of the Leaders’ Council in the Confederation political alliance between his party and Slawomir Mentzen’s New Hope (Nowa Nadzieja in Polish), strongly condemned this article in a post on X. He drew attention to how it “omit[ted] obvious facts regarding the ethnic structure and history of these regions” and described the piece as “historical propaganda (for) creat[ing[] a false sense of grievance”.

This conforms with “a tendency (that) has appeared in the Ukrainian public space to present the territories of modern Poland as areas of Ukrainian identity that were supposedly lost as a result of decisions by Great Powers.” The extremist rhetoric that this narrative extends false credence to “cannot be underestimated because it builds a mental foundation for future political claims, which high-ranking Ukrainian officials are already talking about today.”

Usiadek concluded that “In a situation where Poland bears enormous costs for supporting Ukraine, tolerating a narrative that questions Poland’s historical sovereignty becomes an action to one’s own detriment”, which was warned about here in October 2024 and again here a year later in October 2025. The first details how the “Zakerzonia” issue has begun to mobilize some ultra-nationalists against Poland while the second forecast that it would become more popular as the current conflict winds down.

Espreso TV’s opinion piece was therefore unsurprising since it correlates with the aforesaid trends, which Ukrainian officials are expected to tacitly encourage as leverage for rebalancing relations with Poland, whose rapid US-backed rise worries them. Just like during the interwar period, Germany – which is once again in a zero-sum rivalry with Poland – could weaponize this ultra-nationalist issue for coercing Poland back into its junior partner role, which represents a significant threat scenario to Polish sovereignty.

Just several months ago, “The Ukrainian Ambassador To Poland Admitted That His Co-Ethnics Don’t Want To Assimilate”, which preceded Ukraine’s popular “European Pravda” predicting the formation of an ethnic Ukrainian lobby in the Polish Sejm, thus lending credence to the aforesaid threat assessment. If most of this community isn’t soon “creatively coerced” into re-migrating, then the ultra-nationalists among them might one day carry out acts of terror with partial Sejm protection in pursuit of this cause.