Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday he had returned a state decoration a day after Poland ‘s president said he had stripped him of the award in connection with a dispute over events in World War Two.
Polish President Karol Karol Nawrocki said on Friday he had revoked the medal awarded to Zelenskiy in 2023 after the Ukrainian president renamed a military unit in honour of World War Two-era Ukrainian insurgents accused of massacring Poles.
The row over the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) threatens to deepen a diplomatic rift between the close strategic partners as Kyiv rallies allies to push Russia to end its war on Ukraine.
“We believed that the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023, was meant for the Ukrainian People and our army. That is what was said at the time,” Zelenskiy wrote on X. “Today, I sent the Order back to the President of Poland.”
Zelenskiy posted a photo of the decoration being packed in a box and being sent to the Polish president’s office.
He said Ukraine was grateful for Poland’s support and pledged Kyiv would “remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past”.
