Polish President Karol Nawrocki said he had decided to strip his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Poland's highest state award - the "Order of the White Eagle" - after the Ukrainian leader sparked outrage in his country by renaming an army unit after nationalist rebels who killed scores of Poles during World War II, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.
Zelenskiy was awarded the order in 2023 by then-Polish President Andrzej Duda for his services to security, stability and human rights. But the award will now be revoked after Zelensky issued a decree in late May renaming a military unit of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces the UPA - the Ukrainian Insurgent Army - which operated in the 1940s and 1950s and is accused in Poland of mass murders during World War II.
“For the majority of Polish society, the UPA remains, above all, a formation responsible for atrocities against citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II,“ Nawrocki said on social media. He added that his decision to revoke the award did not mean that Poland's support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia would diminish. Next week, Poland is hosting a major event on Ukraine's post-war reconstruction, which Zelensky is expected to attend.
The UPA is a military organization that fought for Ukrainian independence against the forces of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. But in Poland it is accused of the wartime mass killings of tens of thousands of Poles in what is now western Ukraine. In 2016, the Polish parliament recognized the crimes committed by the UPA as genocide.
Poland's liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticized the Ukrainian decree, but also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could take advantage of the conflict between the two countries over the past. He called on the two heads of state to exercise restraint.
“The conflict between Poland and Ukraine pleases Putin and shocks our allies. The task of Presidents Zelensky and Navrotsky is to calm emotions, not inflame tensions. The front line is elsewhere,“ he wrote on the social network “Ex”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Szybiga said that Poland had made a “strategic mistake“ with the president's decision.
“The decision to strip the President of Ukraine of the “Order of the White Eagle“ is a strategic mistake by the President of Poland, which serves only Moscow“, the Ukrainian top diplomat wrote on “Facebook“
Poland and Ukraine have recently made progress on the issue of the exhumation of Polish victims. A meeting between the two presidents in December in Warsaw signaled progress in historical reconciliation.