{"id":1037451,"date":"2026-06-19T20:57:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1037451\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:57:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:57:45","slug":"polands-president-strips-ukraines-zelensky-of-top-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1037451\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s president strips Ukraine\u2019s Zelensky of top award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Poland\u2019s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday he was stripping Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky of the country\u2019s top award, escalating a row between the neighbours and allies over World War II massacres.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Nawrocki revoked Zelensky\u2019s Order of the White Eagle \u2013 Poland\u2019s highest award \u2013 over the objections of both Kyiv and Poland\u2019s Prime Minister Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cHistorical truth is not, and can never be, a bargaining chip,\u201d he said in a statement announcing the decision.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Polish President Karol Nawrocki (in black) visits troops during a training exercise in Orzysz, Poland, on Wednesday. Photo: EPA\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/912d44bb-6a36-47a3-a503-d32e317fb3db_bf7ac946.jpg\" title=\"Polish President Karol Nawrocki (in black) visits troops during a training exercise in Orzysz, Poland, on Wednesday. Photo: EPA\"\/>Polish President Karol Nawrocki (in black) visits troops during a training exercise in Orzysz, Poland, on Wednesday. Photo: EPA<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday he was stripping Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky of the country\u2019s top&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1037452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[285914,2994,21007,5898,2000,299,91101,51030,10546,2301,285912,770,657,285911,285913,658,12998],"class_list":["post-1037451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-andriy-sybiga","tag-armed-forces-of-ukraine","tag-baltic","tag-donald-tusk","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-gdansk","tag-karol-nawrocki","tag-kyiv","tag-moscow","tag-order-of-the-white-eagle","tag-poland","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-recovery-conference","tag-ukrainian-foreign-minister","tag-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-warsaw"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116778779647659742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}