Grave of Ukrainian writer Bohdan Łepki vandalised at Kraków's Rakowicki Cemetery; Ukraine calls it a deliberate provocation

Theft discovered

On the night of 4–5 July 2026, a bronze bas-relief medallion depicting Ukrainian poet and professor Bohdan Łepki was torn from his grave at Kraków's historic Rakowicki Cemetery. The damage was reported around noon on 5 July by the chairman of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland. Police officers who inspected the site confirmed that the metal plaque had been forcibly removed and that several stone elements of the monument were also damaged.

Police: part of a pattern

Małopolska police spokeswoman Katarzyna Cisło cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the motive. She noted that the theft is one of more than a dozen similar incidents at the cemetery in recent weeks.

This is not the only grave damaged at Rakowicki Cemetery. Recently we have had over a dozen reports of thefts of various metal elements, such as crosses, plaques, figurines.

Investigators are treating the case as a property crime for now and have not linked it to any national or political motive.

Ukraine alleges provocation

Ukraine's foreign ministry took a sharply different view. Spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi described the act as a deliberate attempt to inflame hostility between the two neighbours.

We consider this act of vandalism a deliberate provocation aimed at further fuelling hostility between Ukraine and the Republic of Poland.

The Ukrainian consulate in Kraków has asked Polish police, the cemetery administration and city authorities to investigate thoroughly, identify the perpetrators, and recover or recreate the stolen relief.

Kraków's equality policy commissioner Ewelina Pytel acknowledged the police's initial assessment but added a note of caution.

Although the damage looks like a crude theft – a bronze plaque and a few decorative elements disappeared – it is difficult to completely ignore the context of increasingly frequent provocations aimed at weakening Polish-Ukrainian relations in the face of Russian aggression and acts of violence motivated by national hatred.

Cemetery and writer's legacy

Bohdan Łepki (1872–1941) was a Ukrainian poet, prose writer and professor at the Jagiellonian University. His grave lies in Rakowicki Cemetery, the oldest and most renowned necropolis in Kraków, opened in 1803. The cemetery is the resting place of cultural figures, scientists, independence activists and participants of both world wars. The theft has drawn attention to the vulnerability of historic monuments on the site, where metal elements have increasingly become targets for thieves.