The conflict over history escalates: Polish President Karol Nawrocki takes away To Volodymyr Zelensky the highest Polish award, and Kiev reacts indignantly. The pre-election campaign in Poland is also in the background.
Poland and Ukraine have long been the closest allies. Political and military support from Poland largely contributed to Ukraine successfully defending itself at the beginning of the all-out Russian invasion that began in February 2022. But the months-long dispute over the past is now pushing the two neighboring countries into an ever deeper crisis, writes Deutsche says.
On Friday evening (June 19, 2026), Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced on Platform X that he was stripping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, the highest state award of the Republic of Poland. In doing so, he fulfilled the threat he made a few weeks ago during the dispute over the naming of a Ukrainian military unit "Heroes of the UPA".
In Kiev, that decision caused sharp reactions. "We thought that the Order of the White Eagle was dedicated to the Ukrainian nation and our army. That's what it was said then. Today I returned the order to Mr. President of Poland," Zelensky wrote on his social media on Saturday (June 20). He thanked Poland for its support and solidarity so far, and added that there will be no more disputes about it when Catherine II, Mussolini and Gerhard Schroeder can still be the bearers of that award. At the same time, Zelensky published photos showing the order being sent back to Navrock by a private Ukrainian postal and parcel service.
Later, in an interview with Ukrainian Television 1+1, he accused his Polish colleague of having done all this for pre-election reasons. "President Karol Nawrocki is fighting for his party's position against the prime minister (Donald Tusk). That's the same thing Orbán was doing. It's the wrong way. I think it will end badly."
Ukraine reacted almost unanimously
Over the weekend, almost the entire Ukrainian political elite reacted uniquely. Three of the four surviving former Ukrainian presidents have returned their Polish decorations - Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko. Pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014. The Chief of Cabinet of the President of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andriy Sibiga, returned Polish decorations.
"Navrocki has become someone who destroys the positive achievements we have achieved in recent years. It is no coincidence that he is applauded in Moscow," said the head of Ukrainian diplomacy.
"No president of another country will dictate our history to us," Sibiga said and announced a "reciprocal response", without giving details.
Completely different views on UPA
This is the most difficult conflict between Warsaw and Kiev since the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine. The reason was Zelensky's decision at the end of last month (May 26), which allowed a special unit of the Ukrainian armed forces, at its request, to bear the honorary name "Heroes of the UPA". This was an explicit tribute to the fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which provided armed resistance to the Soviet regime in Ukraine until the 1950s. Today, that resistance occupies a central place in the Ukrainian culture of memory and is one of its key elements.
In Poland, however, the UPA is viewed quite differently. During the Second World War, in the fight for independent Ukraine, the UPA units committed numerous massacres against the Polish population in Western Ukrainian Volhynia from 1943. It is estimated that they killed around 100.000 civilians. Up to 20.000 Ukrainians were killed in subsequent reprisals by Polish partisans. In 2016, the Polish parliament declared the crimes of the UPA to be genocide.
Disturbed process of dealing with the past
The question of the interpretation of that history has been causing political and diplomatic disputes between Poland and Ukraine for decades, which were only temporarily relegated to the background after the start of the war in 2022. Last year, however, Zelensky agreed to Poland's request to allow the opening of the Volyn mass graves with Polish victims for exhumation. In early June 2026, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture issued the first approvals for the opening of these sites.
The Polish president now seems to have dealt a serious blow to that cautious process of dealing with the past. "There are boundaries that must not be crossed in Polish-Ukrainian relations," Nawrocki emphasized in a video message published on Friday on the X platform. At the same time, he threatened to block Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
"A united Europe is built on the rejection of totalitarianism and the cult of violence. Those principles must apply to everyone. There can be no place in the European Union for those who do not understand that. Poland will certainly not allow that," Nawrocki added.
Navrocki does not want the tension to ease
His predecessor Andrzej Duda awarded Zelenski the Order of the White Eagle in 2023. Duda considered the military alliance with Ukraine one of the priorities of Polish foreign policy. Since 2022, Polish political and military assistance has been crucial to Ukraine, and the country has also received millions of Ukrainian war refugees.
But the mood has been deteriorating in recent months. Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees are increasingly becoming a topic of internal political conflicts. Right-wing voters in particular criticize social benefits for Ukrainians in Poland and question Warsaw's military aid to Kiev.
Bartosz Wielinski, a commentator for the newspaper Gazeta Vyborcha, believes that Navrocki does not want to allow relations between Warsaw and Kyiv to calm down for domestic political reasons. In the background is the right-conservative president's conflict with the center-left ruling coalition, whereby he wants to facilitate the return of the right-conservative and far-right opposition to power after the parliamentary elections in 2027.
Tusk in a dilemma
Karol Nawrocki's move put pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk in an awkward position. He must also sign the decision to withdraw the decoration. If it does, it will damage relations with its neighbor to the east, whose military success against Russia is also important for Poland's security. If he refuses to sign, the Polish right will declare him a traitor who ignores the feelings of Poles.
That is why Tusk has been trying to limit the damage since the outbreak of the crisis. He also considers the honorary title "Heroes of the UPA" a scandal that offends the feelings of Poles, but at the same time criticizes Navrocki's harsh reaction.
"The intensification of the conflict by politicians in Ukraine and Poland is a strategic mistake that causes both sides to lose - economically, geopolitically and in terms of reputation," Tusk warned on Sunday at Platform X. "The only one looking forward to the Polish-Ukrainian conflict is Putin."
Meanwhile, during the weekend, prominent Polish intellectuals and civil society activists awarded Volodymyr Zelenskiy with the "Civil Order of the Future" invented especially for the occasion. "The Polish president encourages Russian propaganda," they wrote in their appeal. "As citizens of the Republic of Poland, we award our medal. This is how we show that many Poles do not want to turn against Ukrainians."
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