Poland’s president has called for a state body to discuss revoking the country’s highest honour from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, following Kyiv’s decision to rename an army unit after nationalist insurgents.
The move to consider stripping Mr Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023 by Andrzej Duda, marks a significant point of tension despite Poland’s staunch support for Ukraine during Russia’s war.
Indignation arose after Mr Zelensky signed a decree recognising a Ukrainian special forces unit by naming it after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
While many Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes for their resistance against Soviet and Nazi Germany, symbolising their fight for independence, the group remains highly controversial in Poland.
The UPA was involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of killings from 1943 to 1945, in which Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists.
Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
“Glorifying the UPA has provided Russian propaganda with ample oxygen for disinformation,” Polish President Karol Nawrocki told reporters in Warsaw on Friday.
He said supporting Ukraine against Russia was a strategic goal for Poland. But the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle, an advisory council which oversees Poland’s highest and oldest state decoration, will meet on June 8, he said.
“I proposed that one of the items on the agenda be the revocation of President Zelensky’s Order of the White Eagle,” he said, explaining that “certain mechanisms” such as a Chapter meeting were needed before he could take a final decision.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhyi Tykhyi told journalists it was unfortunate that there had been a negative reaction in Poland to naming the unit after the UPA. U
kraine had not wanted to cause offence, he said.
“Our history confirms that only Moscow benefits from disputes between Ukrainians and Poles,” he said.
For Ukrainian soldiers, he said, “the struggle of the UPA symbolises strictly the opposition to Moscow’s imperial policy”.
‘Wounds the memory of the victims’
Mr Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist inspired by US President Donald Trump, has tapped in to weariness among some Poles with the large number of Ukrainians in the country, and promised during his election campaign to put “Poles first”.
Poland’s foreign ministry said on X on Friday that renaming the Ukrainian unit after the UPA “wounds the memory of the victims of that organisation and strikes at the dialogue between our nations”.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian presidency declined to comment on Mr Nawrocki’s remarks, saying Ukraine was thankful for Poland’s support “and we hope that our independence, and Poland’s, will remain strong despite all the Russian attempts to kill it”.
Mr Zelensky received the Order of the White Eagle in recognition of his contributions to bilateral relations, democracy, peace and security in Europe and for “steadfastness in defending inalienable human rights”.
Russia on Thursday said it had summoned Luxembourg’s ambassador to denounce the exhumation of the remains of Andriy Melnyk, a leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, a group allied to the UPA.
Mr Melnyk, branded a Nazi collaborator by Moscow, was reburied in Kyiv last week with full military honours.
