Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on May 29 that he would seek to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Poland\u2019s highest state honour after Kyiv named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), reigniting one of the most sensitive disputes in Polish-Ukrainian relations.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki, a historian by education, said the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle would meet on June 8 and that he had proposed adding the issue of revoking Zelenskiy\u2019s decoration to the agenda. Zelenskyy received the order in April 2023 from then-President Andrzej Duda for contributions to Polish-Ukrainian relations, democracy, peace and security in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI proposed that one of the items on the agenda be the revocation of President Zelenskiy\u2019s Order of the White Eagle,\u201d Nawrocki said, according to a video released on social media by his office.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki was responding to Zelenskiy\u2019s May 26 decree, which granted the honorary name \u201cHeroes of the UPA\u201d to the Separate Special Operations Centre North\u00a0of Ukraine\u2019s Special Operations Forces.<\/p>\n
The decree said the decision was intended to restore \u201cthe historical traditions of the national army\u201d and recognised the unit\u2019s role in defending Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity and independence.<\/p>\n
The UPA is viewed by many Ukrainians as part of the country\u2019s anti-Soviet independence struggle and as an inspiration for Ukraine\u2019s resistance to Russian aggression, which began in February 2022.<\/p>\n
In Poland, however, the formation is viewed very differently. The massacres, in which the UPA killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians in 1943-1945, remain the most contentious chapter in relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n
Historians estimate that as many as 100,000 Poles could have been killed, while Polish reprisals claimed 10,000 to 20,000 Ukrainian lives.<\/p>\n
Warsaw classifies the events as genocide. Kyiv, however, regards the nationalist movement responsible for the killings as central to its own statehood narrative, making an official apology politically difficult.<\/p>\n
Over years of talks, Poland and Ukraine have reached some incremental agreements on commemorating the victims. Last year, after a long hiatus, exhumations resumed in the Volhynia region of Ukraine, where the UPA was most active against Poles, as part of work aimed at identifying the victims and burying them properly.<\/p>\n
The Russian wedge<\/p>\n
Nawrocki said Zelenskiy\u2019s decision had given Russian propaganda \u201cample oxygen for disinformation\u201d. The Polish president also said Ukraine could not join the EU while continuing to glorify those responsible for murdering Polish civilians.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Donald Tusk also criticised Zelenskiy\u2019s decision, saying on social media that \u201cif we quarrel about the past, someone else will win the future,\u201d in an apparent reference to Russia.<\/p>\n
“The President of Ukraine should finally understand this. The Poles too. Before it’s too late!\u201d Tusk also said, in an apparent reference to Nawrocki’s reaction.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to drive a wedge between Warsaw and Kyiv on May 31, telling Vesti, a Russian news outlet, that it was \u201cwonderful\u201d Poland had noticed Zelenskiy\u2019s decree and \u201ctook a position\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all, those glorified Nazis [the UPA] killed Poles. They killed Jews, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Thank God that at least someone in Poland is preserving this memory,\u201d Peskov said.<\/p>\n
Russia has long sought to exploit the history of Ukrainian nationalist groups, including the UPA, that collaborated with Nazi Germany at points during World War Two, to support its broader propaganda claim that modern Ukraine has rehabilitated Nazism.<\/p>\n
The narrative resonates in Russia, where victory over Nazi Germany remains central to state identity and political memory.<\/p>\n
The claim draws on real but highly selective history. Parts of the Ukrainian nationalist movement collaborated with Nazi Germany and were implicated in violence against Poles. Until the outbreak of World War Two, large parts of what is now western Ukraine belonged to Poland.<\/p>\n
The UPA later fought both German forces and the Soviets, hoping for an independent Ukrainian state to emerge in the post-war order.<\/p>\n
Moscow has sought to equate Ukraine’s modern independence movement with the pre-World War Two nationalist movement.<\/p>\n
Despite centuries of painful history, Poland has been one of Ukraine\u2019s strongest and most vocal backers since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has sought to reassure Poland that no offence was intended, while also signalling that it will not back down.<\/p>\n
“Today, Ukrainian military personnel defend not only Ukraine, but also all of Europe. By initiating the awarding of an honorary title to their unit, our soldiers certainly did not intend to offend the friendly Polish people. For them, the UPA struggle symbolizes exclusively the opposition to Moscow’s imperial policy \u2014 and is in no way directed against the Poles,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said, according to the Kyiv Independent.<\/p>\n
“Our history confirms that only Moscow benefits from disputes between Ukrainians and Poles,\u201d Tykhyi also said, adding that Ukraine was grateful for Poland’s support for its fight against Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on May 29 that he would seek to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[95],"tags":[1193,50685,182,238,5564,35683,241,181,10461],"class_list":["post-98043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-history","tag-nawrocki","tag-poland","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-tusk","tag-ukraine","tag-warsaw","tag-zelensky"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116681815330960196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}