Zelensky returns Polish honor amid wartime history dispute

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has returned Poland’s highest state honor after Polish President Karol Nawrocki said he would strip him of the award, deepening a dispute between two wartime allies over the memory of World War II massacres.

The Order of the White Eagle was awarded to Zelensky in 2023 by then-Polish President Andrzej Duda. The dispute escalated after Kyiv renamed a Ukrainian army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, a nationalist formation that operated in the 1940s and 1950s and remains sharply divisive in Poland and Ukraine.

“We believed that the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023, was meant for the Ukrainian People and our army. That is what was said at the time,” Zelensky wrote on X, according to Al Jazeera. “Today, I sent the Order back to the President of Poland.”

In a separate statement on social media, Zelensky said Ukraine would “remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past.” He added that Ukraine was “grateful to the Polish People for their support and co-operation.”

Three senior Ukrainian officials also said they would return Polish awards in solidarity with Zelensky. Al Jazeera identified them as Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw Vasyl Bodnar and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. “Our nations have long-standing relations and different pages of history – both heroic and tragic,” Budanov wrote on social media. “However, this should be an occasion for deep reflection, not crude political speculation.”

The UPA is viewed by many Ukrainians as a force that fought for independence against the Soviet Red Army, Nazi Germany and Polish authorities. Its red-and-black flag is still used by some Ukrainian troops on the front line. Poland, however, accuses the UPA of carrying out genocide against about 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia, now Volyn in Ukraine, from 1943 to 1945.

Nawrocki called Ukraine’s decision to name the unit after the UPA “outrageous,” “incomprehensible” and “deeply disappointing.” In a video released on the Polish president’s official website, he said: “For the overwhelming majority of Polish society, the UPA remains, above all, a formation responsible for the brutal crimes committed against citizens of the Republic of Poland during World War Two.”

“It hurts not only our historical memory. It also undermines the trust built up over the years and in recent months,” Nawrocki added. He said, however, that the dispute would not affect Poland’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Ukrainian officials criticized the Polish move. Al Jazeera reported that Budanov called it “an unfriendly act toward our people” and “a gift to the Moscow aggressor, which will certainly use it against both of our countries.” Sybiha called it a “strategic mistake,” while Bodnar said it was “especially painful” as Ukraine continues to face Russian attacks.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged both sides to lower the temperature. Any feud between Poland and Ukraine “delights” Russian President Vladimir Putin, he wrote on social media, calling on Zelensky and Nawrocki to “calm emotions, not to stoke tensions.” Al Jazeera quoted Tusk as saying the conflict “delights Putin and shocks our allies.”

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s key supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for aid. Ukraine, which aims to join the European Union, attended the first phase of membership negotiations this week in Luxembourg.