Poland’s president has decided to strip Volodymyr Zelensky of the country’s highest honour after the Ukrainian president caused outrage by renaming an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, nationalists responsible for massacring Poles during World War Two.
President Karol Nawrocki’s decision looked likely to trigger a severe diplomatic crisis between the neighbouring countries just days ahead of a conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction in the Polish city of Gdansk, reports RTE.
“In light of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ‘Heroes of the UPA’… I have decided to revoke the Order of the White Eagle from the President of Ukraine,” Mr Nawrocki said in a statement.
“At this point, I would like to emphasise: this decision is not directed against the Ukrainian people. It does not signify a change in the strategic direction of Polish security policy,” reports RTE.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Zelensky’s office.
While Warsaw is a strong supporter of Kyiv’s war effort, public sentiment towards Ukraine has grown increasingly negative in recent years due to weariness with refugees, disputes over grain imports and the legacy of the World War Two massacres, reports RTE.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the decision a “strategic error.”
“We regret that instead of looking for solutions, the Polish side decided to escalate this conflict to an unacceptable and inappropriate level,” he wrote on Facebook, reports RTE.
“No president of another country is going to dictate our history to us.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political opponent of Mr Nawrocki who had sought to defuse the dispute, called on both presidents to cool tensions, reports RTE.
“The conflict between Poland and Ukraine delights Putin and shocks our allies. The task of Presidents Zelensky and Nawrocki is to calm emotions, not to stoke tensions. The front line runs elsewhere,” he wrote in a post on X.
Former president Andrzej Duda awarded Mr Zelensky the Order of the White Eagle in 2023 in recognition of his contributions to bilateral relations, democracy, peace and security in Europe and for “steadfastness in defending inalienable human rights,” reports RTE.
But Mr Nawrocki said in May that an advisory council should consider stripping Mr Zelensky of the honour after he signed a decree recognising a Ukrainian special forces unit’s contribution to the fight against Russian forces by naming it after the UPA.
The decision caused outrage across the political spectrum in Poland, with former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa saying he would no longer wear a badge with the Ukrainian flag and that while he still supported the nation in its fight against Russia, he would not support Mr Zelensky, reports RTE.
Some Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes for the resistance they mounted against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as symbols of Kyiv’s struggle for independence from Moscow.
But the UPA was also 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, reports RTE.
Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
Kyiv had previously said the name had been chosen by soldiers who wanted to honour the UPA’s fight against Moscow and who had no intention of offending Poland, reports RTE.
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