In the Polish city of Jarosław, hundreds of residents gathered to demand tighter controls on borders and immigration and to express opposition to the legacy of Stepan Bandera — a Ukrainian nationalist figure from history — following the killing of a local priest, allegedly carried out by a Ukrainian national.

A 31-year-old Ukrainian national carried out a knife attack at the city's Benedictine abbey the previous month, leaving Father Stanislaw Zbojnowicz dead and four other people with injuries. According to investigators, the person under scrutiny had crossed into Poland from Germany and was making his way toward the Ukrainian border. Prosecutors stated that, on October 7, he entered a plea to the charges but offered no account of his conduct.

Flags bearing Poland's national emblem were raised by those gathered in the city's market square on Saturday, where flares were lit and voices joined in chants — among them calls for Poland to belong to Poles and demands that Bandera be expelled. One attendee asserted that the desire for a safe country carries no racial motivation.

At a gathering addressed by Marcin Kowalski, a community organiser affiliated with the nationalist Ruch Narodowy party, speakers framed calls for tighter immigration controls as a matter of public safety and family protection. A banner visible in the crowd carried a message rejecting further hospitality toward Ukrainians, some attendees wore clothing bearing references critical of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and Kowalski stated that those present opposed the veneration of Stepan Bandera on Polish soil — a position echoed by chants from the assembled demonstrators.

Bandera headed a faction within the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) that held positions toward the more militant end of the movement's spectrum, and the organisation maintained operational ties with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Documentary evidence links the organisation and its paramilitary wing, the UPA, to the deaths of tens of thousands of Polish civilians of ethnic background in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions — areas that belonged to Poland before the war and now lie predominantly within the western portion of Ukraine.

Diplomatic friction between Warsaw and Kyiv has long traced back to the legacy of those killings. Poland's official position classifies the wartime killings as genocide, with estimates placing the Polish death toll at around 100,000, whereas Ukraine has continued to grant national-hero status to figures from the OUN and UPA movements.

Tensions between the two sides deepened after Zelensky took part in the reburial ceremony for OUN leader Andrey Melnik and subsequently granted a Ukrainian military unit the honorary designation "Heroes of the UPA." In response, Polish President Karol Nawrocki withdrew the Order of the White Eagle — Poland's highest state honour — from Zelensky.

A procession held in the murdered priest's memory preceded the rally that took place on Saturday. Those behind the event also gathered petition sheets calling for the dissolution of Jarosław's twinning arrangement with the Ukrainian city of Skole.

Polling conducted in July put the share of Poles who were against taking in Ukrainian refugees at 52 percent of those surveyed.