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<\/a><\/p>\nTHIS week, South Africa\u2019s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco), Ronald Lamola, hosted his Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski, in Pretoria to give effect to their joint desire for closer ties as per their Davos, Switzerland, undertaking during the World Economic Forum (WEF).<\/p>\n
The bilateral meeting at the OR Tambo Building, Dirco\u2019s headquarters in Pretoria, received requisite media attention. As expected, diplomatic decorum reigned supreme, with the two top diplomats undertaking improved cooperation between their two nations.<\/p>\n
Watching Sikorski enjoy very positive media coverage far away from his homeland, I wondered how many South Africans knew about the mammoth diplomatic fallout back home with neighbouring Ukraine that the Polish foreign minister was no doubt seized with.<\/p>\n
Poland has been arguably Ukraine\u2019s biggest ally in the war with Russia, using the Nato-affiliate as a weapons and military conduit for constant calibration of the Ukrainian armed forces.<\/p>\n
Since the war broke out in 2022, Poland has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine in a hitherto unbreakable solidarity. Apart from Poland\u2019s international diplomatic campaign to shore up support for Kiev through Brussels and any other available global avenue, Warsaw in 2023 awarded the highest state honour, the Order of the White Eagle, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n
The message then was crystal clear: Poland stands with Ukraine, the beleaguered neighbour. But now, bilateral ties between Poland and Ukraine are teetering on the brink of total collapse.<\/p>\n
At issue is shared history between the two nations and the drastic difference in how they separately interpret that history from WWII from 1939 to 1945.<\/p>\n
The fallout started in late May when Zelensky issued a controversial decree that has left neighbouring Poland seething with unrestrained anger. Zelensky\u2019s decree awarded a serving military unit an honorary title known as \u201cHeroes of the UPA\u201d.<\/p>\n
The title refers to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, better known as the UPA, which was the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).<\/p>\n
This is a vexatious issue, the crux of the matter that now threatens not only bilateral relations between two next-door neighbours but also the entire Nato cooperation in its proxy war against Russia.<\/p>\n
During WWII, the OUN collaborated with Hitler\u2019s Nazi Germany\u2019s daring invasion of the Soviet Union. Throughout the war period, OUN and its members in the Nazi auxiliary police played a high-profile role in the well-documented genocide of Soviet Jews, including the Babi Yar massacre in 1941 in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.<\/p>\n
Most of the police and many other men in the security cluster went on to form the UPA and recruited more to join. Throughout Ukraine, they hunted down pro-Soviet partisans. They infamously carried out another massacre, this time of Polish people in Volhynia in today\u2019s Western Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The decision by Zelensky, therefore, to invoke the name UPA to honour a present-day military unit in the war, regardless of whether the conflict is with Poland\u2019s enemy Russia, has left a bitter taste among many Poles.<\/p>\n
On June 19, the exasperated government of Poland ensured that Zelensky paid the price for his decision. Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the highest honour awarded in 2023. This was as public repudiation as humiliation for Zelenksy.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacts are not subject to negotiation,\u201d Nawrocki was quoted as saying. \u201c100\u00a0000 Polish citizens were murdered by the UPA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The fallout was now in full swing. Zelensky flew back the Order of the White Eagle, pardon the pun, to Warsaw. His reaction triggered a flurry of retaliatory activities inside Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential office and Ukraine\u2019s head of military intelligence, renounced his own Polish honour \u2014 the Golden Officer\u2019s Cross of the Order of Merit. Budanov angrily charged that in Poland, \u201cthe flywheel of hatred is unreasonably and artificially spun against our citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n
The fallout took a further nosedive when three former presidents of Ukraine \u2014 Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko \u2014 all returned to Poland their Order of the White Eagle awards. They did this to show unity and solidarity with their successor.<\/p>\n
The display of solidarity among Ukraine\u2019s political elites appears strong. The country\u2019s foreign ministry has denounced Poland\u2019s move, describing it as a \u201cstrategic mistake from which only Moscow benefits\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week, Zelensky skipped the annual \u201cUkraine\u2019s Recovery Conference\u201d held in Gdansk, Poland. He instead sent his prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, in his place.<\/p>\n
The annual conference is important in that it seeks to mobilise international support for Ukraine\u2019s reconstruction post-war. It is one of the practical examples of the shaky solidarity and cooperation between the two countries and has thus far left neither side blinking first.<\/p>\n
If the fallout degenerates into full-blown antagonism, Poland will likely rethink acting as Nato\u2019s conduit to the military and economic supply line for \u201cungrateful\u201d Ukraine. Already, the simmering tension is a huge problem in that it has taken the focus away from the collective onslaught on Russia.<\/p>\n
But it also exposes Zelensky\u2019s character, and additionally, that of his inner circle, including the three former presidents. It shows that even in the midst of war, Ukraine does not tread carefully so as not to alienate allies. In other words, Poland sees Ukraine as biting the hand that feeds Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The disappointed Polish presidency says before stripping Zelensky of his honours, they had attempted to persuade him to rescind his provocative decree, but he flatly refused.<\/p>\n
This is one of several areas of discontentment in the Nato quarters. The collective disdain for Russia is not glue or adhesive enough to keep the Western bloc together amid the conflict.<\/p>\n
If anyone had thought the war with Russia bore a galvanising effect for the West, better think again. Beneath the surface that is Ukraine, the earth is shaking with ferocity.<\/p>\n
* Abbey Makoe is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Global South Media Network. Views expressed are personal.<\/p>\n
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.<\/p>\n