Has Zelenskyy forfeited an honor — and Poland's sympathy?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sparked outrage with the renaming of an army unit. Polish President Karol Nawrocki wants to strip him of his country's
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sparked outrage with the renaming of an army unit. Polish President Karol Nawrocki wants to strip him of his country's highest order. Can PM Donald Tusk smooth things over? On May 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree that a special forces unit of the Ukrainian army was being given the honorary name Heroes of the UPA, explaining that it was "to restore the historical traditions of the national army." However, the decree has created serious tensions with Poland, one of Ukraine's most important allies in the war with Russia. After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the partisan Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was formed to fight for an independent Ukrainian state — which at first it did as Germany's ally. In order to drive the Polish population out of regions it claimed for Ukraine, the UPA committed war crimes against ethnic Polish civilians, including the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, a region now divided between Poland and Ukraine. The response of Poland's right-wing conservative president Karol Nawrocki to Ukraine's decision to award the unit this honorific title was correspondingly sharp. "Unfortunately, President Zelenskyy has shown that Ukraine, in terms of mentality — glorifying bandits, murderers from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — is not ready to be part of the European family," he said on May 29 in Warsaw, according to Polish TV channel Polsat. "In the European family, you cannot glorify bandits [who] murdered women and children, murdered Poles." Nawrocki said he was moving to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor. The award jury is set to discuss the case on June 8. Nawrocki 'inflaming anti-Ukrainian sentiment' The military alliance with Ukraine was a priority of Polish foreign policy under former President Andrzej Duda, who awarded the Ukrainian leader the order in 2023.
Military and political support from Warsaw contributed significantly to Ukraine's success in halting Russia's attacks during the initial phase of the war in 2022. Ukraine refugees help Poland's economy thrive To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Unlike his predecessor, Nawrocki has had no qualms about criticizing Ukraine, as was apparent in his 2025 election campaign. He has voiced skepticism about Ukraine's chances of joining the European Union, and criticized the social support given to Ukrainian refugees in Poland, which he declared was too generous. One year after his election, Nawrocki has still not paid an official visit to Kyiv, preferring instead to receive Zelenskyy in Warsaw in December. "Nawrocki has used the opportunity to inflame anti-Ukrainian sentiment," the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza wrote on June 1. "He has been handed a pretext and is ruthlessly exploiting it." Tusk tries to limit damage Donald Tusk, Poland's pro-European prime minister, has made initial efforts to limit the damage. He stressed that Zelenskyy's decision had violated Poland's "historical sensibility." Every nation, Tusk said, was entitled to its own interpretation of the past, but Zelenskyy and "our Ukrainian friends" should show greater awareness of "what this grim legacy of the UPA means from the perspective of every Pole." Tusk has distanced himself from Nawrocki's suggestion that Zelenskyy should be stripped of the order. "If we quarrel about the past, someone else will win the future," he warned, indicating that if Poland and Ukraine continued down this route, "the Kremlin will truly have reason to rejoice." In February, Zelenskyy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (left) signed a letter of intent on joint defense production Image: Yuliia Ovsiannikova/Ukrinform/IMAGO Other representatives of Poland's ruling center-left coalition have also expressed their outrage at Kyiv's decision to name the unit after the Heroes of the UPA.
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