The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky sharply criticized the decision of the Polish head of state Karol Nawrotsky to strip him of the highest Polish state award - the Order of the White Eagle. His words were quoted by the BBC.
The conflict came after Zelensky approved the renaming of a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in honor of the "heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA). In Poland, the organization is primarily associated with the mass murders of the Polish population in Volyn and Eastern Galicia in the period 1943-1945, which is why its glorification provokes a strong public reaction.
In an interview with the Ukrainian television TSN, Zelensky said that Nawrocki's decision is part of an internal political struggle in Poland.
"I think that after he made this decision, it shows that he continues the political struggle in his own country by inciting hatred against Ukrainians," the Ukrainian president said, quoted by "Interfax-Ukraine".
He compared the actions of the Polish president to the policies of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"What Orban was doing. A bad story, which I think will end badly. "That's why we need to talk not about emotions, but about concrete steps," Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian president suggested that the dispute is related to the future political struggle in Poland before the parliamentary elections in 2027.
"I see this as a complete election campaign. President Karol is fighting for the prime minister's post to defeat Prime Minister Tusk's party. "This is an internal Polish matter," he added.
According to Ukrainian media, Nawrocki's decision has sparked a backlash in Ukraine, with former Ukrainian presidents who were awarded the Order of the White Eagle also announcing they were renouncing the award in solidarity with Zelensky.
Why is the topic so sensitive?
The dispute over the UPA is part of a much deeper historical conflict between Poland and Ukraine that continues to affect relations between the two countries today.
For centuries, large parts of what is now western Ukraine were under Polish rule. Poles see Lviv (Lviv) and Galicia as part of their own historical heritage, while Ukrainians see them as the cradle of their national revival.
After the end of World War I, Poland and Ukrainian national forces fought a war for control of eastern Galicia and Lviv. The victory was on the Polish side, and millions of Ukrainians remained within the borders of the Polish state.
However, the most serious historical wound is associated with the Volyn massacre. During World War II, units of the UPA carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in Volyn and Eastern Galicia. Polish estimates speak of between 50,000 and 100,000 killed Polish civilians. In response, Polish units also carried out repressions and murders of Ukrainians, albeit on a smaller scale.
For Poles, these events constitute genocide. For a significant part of Ukrainians, the UPA remains a symbol of the armed struggle against the Soviet Union for an independent Ukrainian state.
This fundamental difference in historical memory periodically gives rise to political crises between the two countries. After the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022, Warsaw and Kiev managed to temporarily put historical disputes on the back burner in the name of common security. Nevertheless, the issue of the UPA and the Volhynia Massacre remains one of the most painful topics in Polish-Ukrainian relations and continues to evoke strong emotions on both sides of the border.