Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on May 30 that he will convene the Order of the White Eagle Council on June 8 to discuss revoking the highest Polish honor — which he had awarded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2023. The move comes after Zelensky signed a decree naming a Ukrainian special forces unit “Heroes of UPA,” after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
For some Ukrainian nationalists, the UPA are considered heroes for resisting the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. However, UPA fighters also participated in the Volhynia massacre in western Ukraine between 1943 and 1945, where Poland says about 100,000 Poles were killed.
President Nawrocki expressed “outrage” at Zelensky’s decree and proposed “stripping President Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said the Ukrainian leader’s move “hurts our historical sensitivities” and is “worrisome from the perspective of bilateral relations.”
Polish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa said he decided to stop wearing the Ukrainian flag badge in protest. “By honoring the UPA bandits, the Ukrainian president has insulted me and all my compatriots who were massacred,” Walesa wrote on Facebook.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Poland has been a major ally to Kyiv and has served as a conduit for Western military aid. However, as the war drags on and peace talks stall, Zelensky has been seeking to unite the country against Russia by invoking historical figures. Earlier this week, Kyiv repatriated the remains of a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the body that formed the UPA unit.
