Poland\u2019s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki announced Friday he was stripping Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky of the country\u2019s top award, escalating a row between the neighbours and allies over over WWII massacres.<\/p>\n
Relations between Warsaw and Kyiv have been tense for days over Zelensky\u2019s naming of a Ukrainian army unit after a WWII nationalist insurgent army that took part in massacres against Poles.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki\u2019s decision landed days before Poland is due to host the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference in its Baltic city of Gdansk. It is not clear if Zelensky will attend.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki revoked Zelensky\u2019s Order of the White Eagle \u2014 Poland\u2019s highest award \u2014 over the objections of both Kyiv and Poland\u2019s Prime Minister Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorical truth is not, and can never be, a bargaining chip,\u201d he said in a statement announcing the decision.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki said Poland had \u201crepeatedly\u201d called on Ukraine to reverse the naming of the unit. \u201cThe Ukrainian side\u2019s position has not changed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, in light of President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine \u2018Heroes of the UPA\u2019\u2026 I have decided to revoke the Order of the White Eagle from the President of Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kyiv said the decision was a \u201cstrategic mistake\u201d from which \u201conly Moscow stands to gain\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said he now planned to return an award he had received from Poland in 2022 after the \u201cunjustified, impulsive and disrespectful\u201d decision.<\/p>\n
Poland has been one of Ukraine\u2019s main allies during more than four years of Moscow\u2019s invasion, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for Western aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Historical rows between the neighbours have become less frequent since Tusk returned to power, replacing Warsaw\u2019s previous nationalist government, but they have still been a source of friction between the allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki announced Friday he was stripping Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky of the country\u2019s top award,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[704,7298,9],"class_list":["post-12847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-international","tag-mna","tag-poland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}