Warsaw, Poland. Poland’s president has decided to strip Volodymyr Zelenskiy of the country’s top honour after the Ukrainian president approved the naming of an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA. The move risks triggering a diplomatic crisis between the neighbouring countries.
Revocation of state honour
President Karol Nawrocki said he had decided to revoke the Order of the White Eagle from the president of Ukraine following Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “Heroes of the UPA.”
Nawrocki announced the decision in a statement and said it came in response to the naming of the military unit.
Reaction from Ukraine
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Friday that Poland’s decision to remove the award was a mistake.
He wrote on Facebook that stripping the president of Ukraine of the Order of the White Eagle was “a strategic error” by the president of Poland and said the decision only benefits Moscow.
Historical background
The decision comes days before a conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction in the Polish city of Gdansk.
Some Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes because of their resistance against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as symbols of Kyiv’s struggle for independence from Moscow.
However, the UPA was also involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of killings from 1943 to 1945 in which Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
