Polish president threatens to strip Ukraine’s Zelenskyy of top state honour 

Poland’s president wants a state body to discuss stripping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s top honour, following Ukraine renaming an army unit ⁠after nationalist fighters who killed Poles in World War II.

Poland has been a staunch supporter of Kyiv during Russia’s war in Ukraine, and former President Andrzej Duda awarded Zelenskyy the Order of the White ⁠Eagle in 2023.

But the Ukrainian leader caused indignation in Poland by signing a decree earlier this week naming a military special forces unit “Heroes of the UPA”, after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

To some Ukrainian nationalists, the UPA are regarded as heroes for their resistance against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

But UPA fighters were also involved in the Volhynia massacres in what is now western Ukraine from 1943 to 1945 when Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed.

Responding to Zelenskyy’s decree, Polish President Karol Nawrocki said that he was “outraged”, and had proposed “the withdrawal of the Order of the White Eagle from President Zelenskyy”.

According to Nawrocki, the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle, an advisory council that oversees the state decoration, will meet on June 8.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the Ukrainian leader’s move “wounds our historical sensitivity” and is “worrying from the point of view of our relations”.

Polish Nobel Peace Prize-winner Lech Walesa, who was crucial in the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, said he had decided to stop wearing a Ukrainian flag pin as a result.

“By honouring the bandits of the UPA, the president of Ukraine has insulted me and all our massacred compatriots,” Walesa said on Facebook.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Poland has been a major ally to Kyiv and served as a link for Western military aid.

But as the war drags on, with no clear end in sight and peace talks stalled, Zelenskyy has been trying to unify the country against Russia by invoking historical figures.

Earlier this week, Kyiv repatriated the remains of a leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the umbrella group that established the UPA unit.