Poland‘s hard-right president Karol Nawrocki on Friday stripped his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky of Warsaw‘s top award, escalating a row between the neighbours and allies over the memory of World War II.
Zelensky infuriated Warsaw earlier this month by naming a military unit after an insurgent army that took part in massacres against Poles in World War II.
Read moreZelensky ignites fury by honouring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews
Poland has been one of Ukraine‘s main allies during the Russian invasion, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and turning into a logistics hub for Western support for Kyiv.
In Poland, Ukrainian refugees help drive economic growth
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But spats over World War II memory have historically strained Kyiv-Warsaw relations.
Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest honour.
He did so despite Kyiv and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking him not to escalate the spat further – and less than a week before Poland is due to host the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference, with Zelensky’s attendance unclear for days amid the row.
“Historical truth is not, and can never be, a bargaining chip. Remembering the victims is a moral obligation of the Polish state,” Nawrocki, who became president last year, said in a statement.
He said that Poland had demanded Ukraine reverse its decision on the army unit but Kyiv had not done so.
“Therefore, in light of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ‘Heroes of the UPA’ … I have decided to revoke the Order of the White Eagle from the president of Ukraine,” Nawrocki said.
Ukraine slammed the decision as a “strategic mistake” from which “only Moscow stands to gain”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said he now planned to return an award he had received from Poland in 2022 after the “unjustified, impulsive and disrespectful” decision.
Tusk calls for ‘history not to ruin future’
Between 1943 and 1945, thousands of Polish civilians were killed by UPA Ukrainian nationalist units in the Volhynia region – a Ukrainian region that was part of Poland before World War II.
Tusk – whose government is at loggerheads with Nawrocki – has called Zelensky’s army unit naming a “bad decision”, while also calling for calm and saying the Ukrainian leader had told him “he did not have the slightest intention to offend Poles”.
Tusk had appealed to both nations “not to waste” the kind of solidarity between the two countries seen during the Russian invasion.
Next week, Poland said it expects several thousand officials and business leaders in its Baltic port of Gdansk for the Ukraine Recovery Conference, an annual event to promote investment into Kyiv that Zelensky traditionally attends.
Tusk did not give a clear answer Friday on whether the Ukrainian leader will attend the conference, but said that “I hope nothing like that will undermine all the effort, mainly on Poland’s part, to organise this huge undertaking.”
Hours before the president’s decision, Poland’s foreign ministry spokesman Maciej Wiewor told AFP, when asked about the Gdansk conference, that “what unites us is the future and ensuring both Ukraine and Poland are safe. I think that is the priority today.”
The Ukraine Recovery Conference is a two-day event due to kick off in Gdansk, Tusk’s hometown, next Thursday.
Poland has presented the conference – previously hosted by Rome, Berlin, London and Switzerland‘s Lugano – as a major economic and political win, preparing it for weeks.
Zelensky has not yet commented on Poland’s decision.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
