Has Zelenskyy forfeited an honor — and Poland's sympathy?

On May 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree that a special forces unit of the Ukrainian army was being given the honorary name Heroes of the UPA, explaining that it was "to restore the historical traditions of the national army."

However, the decree has created serious tensions with Poland, one of Ukraine's most important allies in the war with Russia .

After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the partisan Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was formed to fight for an independent Ukrainian state — which at first it did as Germany's ally. In order to drive the Polish population out of regions it claimed for Ukraine, the UPA committed war crimes against ethnic Polish civilians, including the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, a region now divided between Poland and Ukraine.

The response of Poland's right-wing conservative president Karol Nawrocki to Ukraine's decision to award the unit this honorific title was correspondingly sharp.

"Unfortunately, President Zelenskyy has shown that Ukraine, in terms of mentality — glorifying bandits, murderers from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — is not ready to be part of the European family," he said on May 29 in Warsaw, according to Polish TV channel Polsat. "In the European family, you cannot glorify bandits [who] murdered women and children, murdered Poles."

Nawrocki said he was moving to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor. The award jury is set to discuss the case on June 8.

The military alliance with Ukraine was a priority of Polish foreign policy under former President Andrzej Duda, who awarded the Ukrainian leader the order in 2023. Military and political support from Warsaw contributed significantly to Ukraine's success in halting Russia's attacks during the initial phase of the war in 2022.

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