WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish President Karol Nawrocki said Friday he will strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest state honor over the Ukraine leader’s decision to name a military unit after a Ukrainian paramilitary organization accused of massacring Poles during World War II.Zelenskyy was awarded the Order of the White Eagle in 2023 by Poland’s then President Andrzej Duda for his services to security, resilience and the defence of human rights. But it will now be revoked after Zelenskyy issued a decree on May 26 naming a military unit of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the UPA — the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — which operated during the 1940s and 1950s and which is accused in Poland of mass killings. “For the majority of Polish society, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains above all a formation responsible for cruel crimes against the citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II,” Nawrocki said in a 13-minute address on social media.
Nawrocki said his decision to revoke the honor did not mean Poland’s support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia would decrease.
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