Polish President Karol Nawrocki has called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour, after Kyiv named a military unit after the wartime nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), an organisation linked to the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles during the Second World War.
Poland holds the UPA responsible for the slaughter of around 100,000 Polish civilians, mostly women and children, in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine — atrocities officially recognised by Poland as genocide.
Zelensky approved the move on May 27, granting the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” to the Separate Special Operations Centre “North” of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and saying the decision was intended “to restore the historical traditions of the national army”.
Zelensky received the Order of the White Eagle from then-president Andrzej Duda during a visit to Warsaw on April 5, 2023.
Nawrocki said that by naming a Ukrainian unit after the Heroes of the UPA, the Ukrainian president had “provided Russian propaganda with excellent material and considerable fuel”.
“I am very critical of this decision,” Nawrocki said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the move “wounds our historical sensitivity” and is “worrying from the point of view of our relations”.
Tusk, whose government regularly clashes with the opposition-aligned president, sought to calm tempers. At the same time, Tusk urged both nations not to become trapped by historical disputes.
“If we quarrel about the past, someone else will win the future,” Tusk said.
“The President of Ukraine should finally understand this. The Poles too. Before it is too late,” he added.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki on May 28 summoned Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Bodnar to formally protest against the decision, telling him the move was deeply painful for many Poles.
