Top Ukrainian officials return Polish awards in row over WWII massacres

KYIV, Ukraine — Top Ukrainian officials said on Saturday they were returning Polish awards after President Volodymyr Zelensky was stripped of Warsaw’s top order, in a row between the allies over WWII massacres.

Zelensky infuriated neighboring Poland this month by naming a military unit after the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that took part in massacres against Poles in WWII.

On Friday, hard-right Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle — the highest honor in Poland — despite requests from both Kyiv and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

On Saturday, Zelensky’s top aide and Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw followed Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga in saying they were relinquishing awards bestowed by Poland as a way of showing solidarity with the president.

They argued the move by Nawrocki benefited Russia, whose war with Ukraine is now in its fifth year.

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“This is a gift to the Moscow aggressor, who will certainly use it against both of our countries,” Zelensky aide Kyrylo Budanov said on social media.

He said he was returning the Gold Officer’s Cross of the Polish Order of Merit.

Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said he was relinquishing his Knight’s Cross of the Polish Order of Merit, describing Nawrocki’s move as “especially painful and emotional” and “a gesture directed at the entire Ukrainian people.”

Sybiga said on Friday he planned to return an award he received from Poland in 2022 after the “unjustified, impulsive and disrespectful” decision.

Zelensky’s May naming decree said the designation was meant to restore the historical traditions of the national military and recognize the unit’s performance in defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence.

The UPA fought for Ukrainian independence against both Nazi German and Soviet forces. But it has been accused of killing tens of thousands of Poles, most in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. In 2016, the Polish Parliament recognized the crimes committed by UPA as genocide.

Ukrainians say armed formations on both sides, including the UPA and Polish underground forces, were involved in attacks and reprisals that led to large-scale civilian casualties among Poles and Ukrainians.

According to some historical accounts, the group also murdered thousands of Jews in the 1940s. Other historians, as well as supporters of the UPA, dispute this, claiming there were many Jews who themselves served in the ranks of the organization.

Poland and Ukraine had recently made progress on the issue of exhumation of Polish victims. A December meeting between the two presidents in Warsaw had signaled progress on historical reconciliation.

Nawrocki said Kyiv’s “decision to glorify the UPA is not only outrageous” but also “deeply disappointing,” undermining “reconciliation” between the two nations.

Tusk — whose government is at loggerheads with Nawrocki — said Zelensky’s choice was a “bad decision” but the Ukrainian leader had told him “he did not have the slightest intention to offend Poles.”

Tusk appealed to both nations “not to waste” the kind of solidarity seen between the two countries since the start of the Russian invasion and “for history not to ruin our future.”

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s main allies during the war, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for Western aid to Kyiv.