WARSAW – Poland remains one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in Europe but a growing row over wartime history is accelerating a broader shift in which Ukraine has become an increasingly divisive issue in Polish politics.
The latest rupture came after President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour.
The move triggered a diplomatic backlash, with several senior Ukrainian officials relinquishing their own Polish awards, including presidential aide Kyrylo Budanov and former presidents Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko.
The row erupted in May, after Zelenskyy approved the naming of a military unit after the “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA). During World War II, the UPA killed an estimated 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
While widely regarded in Poland as responsible for genocide, the UPA remains for many Ukrainians a symbol of resistance against Soviet rule.
