Ukrainian officials criticise Polish president’s decision to strip Zelenskyy of State honour

Polish President Karol Nawrocki said that he will strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest State honour over the Ukraine leader’s decision to name a military unit after a Ukrainian paramilitary organisation accused of massacring Poles during World War II.

Zelenskyy was awarded the Order of the White Eagle in 2023 by Poland’s then President Andrzej Duda for his services to security, resilience and the defence of human rights.

But it will now be revoked after Zelenskyy issued a decree on May 26 naming a military unit of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the UPA — the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — which operated during the 1940s and 1950s and which is accused in Poland of mass killings.

“For the majority of Polish society, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains above all a formation responsible for cruel crimes against the citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II,” Nawrocki said in a 13-minute address on social media.  Nawrocki said his decision to revoke the honour did not mean Poland’s support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia would decrease.

Next week, Poland is hosting a major event on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, with Zelenskyy expected to attend.

Zelenskyy’s decree said the designation was meant to restore the historical traditions of the national military and to recognise the unit’s performance in defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence. The UPA was a military organisation that fought for Ukrainian independence against both Nazi German and Soviet forces.

But it is accused in Poland for the wartime killings of tens of thousands of Poles, most in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.