Polish President Karol Nawrocki has announced that he is stripping his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour.
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Nawrocki made the decision in response to Ukraine naming a military unit after the controversial World War Two Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
In a video posted on X on Friday evening, Nawrocki stressed that the decision to withdraw the honour “is not directed against the Ukrainian nation” and “does not signify a change in the strategic direction of Poland’s security policy”.
He also underlined that Poland’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia remains unchanged.
At the same time, he said that relations between Warsaw and Kyiv were being weakened by “the strengthening of a memory poisoned by crime”.
In his view, stripping the order is “not merely symbolic; it is also a warning signal”.
He added: “There are boundaries that must not be crossed in Polish-Ukrainian relations”.
Reaction in Poland and Ukraine
Responding to the Polish president’s decision, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha described it as “Nawrocki’s strategic mistake, from which only Russia will benefit”.
He also announced that he would return the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, awarded to him in 2022.
The Polish Orders of Merit – specifically the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland – were also renounced by the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar.
“Unfortunately, Polish President Karol Nawrocki has made an unfriendly gesture towards our nation by stripping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle previously conferred on him. Without doubt, this is a gift to the Moscow aggressor, who will ruthlessly exploit it against both our countries,” Budanov wrote on the Telegram messenger service on Saturday.
Bodnar wrote in a Facebook post that he “cannot remain indifferent to a decision he considers historically unjust”.
“While I understand the emotions in Poland, I cannot accept that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – a friend of Poland, the head of a state that is bravely defending itself against the Russian aggressor and defending peace in Europe – has been stripped of Poland’s highest decoration,” he added.
Zelenskyy’s office has not commented on the matter.
By contrast, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, warned that the decision could have a negative impact on cooperation between the two states.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that “a conflict between Poland and Ukraine delights Putin and shocks our allies”.
He added: “The task facing Presidents Zelenskyy and Nawrocki is to calm emotions, not fuel tensions. The front line runs elsewhere”.
Government spokesman Adam Szłapka pointed out that Nawrocki’s decision had been welcomed by the Russian authorities, citing a post by Dmitry Medvedev.
Opposition representatives deemed the president’s move appropriate, while politicians from the Left and the Poland 2050 party warned of a possible deterioration in Polish-Ukrainian relations.
Meanwhile, the Institute of National Remembrance announced that it would launch an information campaign devoted to Ukrainian nationalism.
Controversial decision
At the end of May, the Ukrainian president decided to name one of the country’s military units “Heroes of the UPA”, a move that drew criticism from the Polish authorities, including the prime minister, defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Last week, at Nawrocki’s request, the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle reviewed the possibility of stripping Zelenskyy of the distinction and issued its opinion.
Zelenskyy received the Order of the White Eagle in April 2023 from the then president, Andrzej Duda, “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to deepening friendly and comprehensive relations between Poland and Ukraine, for developing cooperation in support of democracy, peace and security in Europe, and for his steadfast defence of inalienable human rights”.
Under the Act on Orders and Decorations, the president may strip a person of a decoration on his own initiative, after seeking the opinion of the relevant chapter, or at the chapter’s request.
This is possible when “the award of an order or decoration took place as a result of deception, or the decorated person has committed an act that makes them unworthy of the order or decoration”.
At the beginning of June, head of the National Security Bureau Bartosz Grodecki argued that withdrawing the order requires “the countersignature of the prime minister”.
A similar view was expressed by the head of the Presidential Chancellery, Zbigniew Bogucki, who stressed that while conferring orders is among the president’s prerogatives, in the case of withdrawing them “the prime minister’s countersignature will probably be needed”.
Adam Szłapka, for his part, said the government would adopt a position only after receiving the appropriate request from the president.
The dispute over the activities of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) has for many years remained one of the main issues dividing Poland and Ukraine.
In the Polish narrative, the events in Volhynia in 1943 are regarded as genocide, whereas in Ukraine they are more often presented as the result of an armed conflict for which both sides share responsibility.
In Ukrainian historical memory, OUN and UPA are additionally seen above all as organisations that fought the USSR after the Second World War, rather than solely as formations targeting Poles.
Polish public opinion
According to the latest survey conducted by United Surveys for the Wirtualna Polska website, carried out before President Nawrocki’s decision, 51.2% of respondents were in favour of withdrawing this honorary decoration. Of these, 31.9% strongly supported such a step.
Some 35.5% of those surveyed opposed the move. The majority in this group, 23%, chose the answer “rather not”, while 12.5% expressed strong opposition.
The remaining 13.3% of respondents had no settled view or chose the answer “don’t know/hard to say”.
