Polish President Karol Nawrocki (L) and President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)In July 2024, serving as Ukraine's Ambassador to Poland, I was honored to be decorated by President Andrzej Duda with the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Merit.For the trust, the fellowship, and the years of honest partnership — I remain profoundly grateful to my Polish friends. And it is in that same spirit of honesty that I ask them to understand what conscience now requires of me.My devotion to the interests of the Ukrainian state, my duty to honor the dignity of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Armed Forces, my fellow diplomats, and the free and unbroken Ukrainian people, as well as my deep sense of justice, compel me to return the state decoration of the Republic of Poland.It pains me to say this, but evidently some representatives of the Polish political elite never truly understood — and perhaps never wished to understand — the real price of Ukraine's freedom: who Ukrainians are, against what enemy and for what values the Ukrainian people are fighting and shedding their blood today.
"Political egotism blinds."
Nor did they understand that it would be hard to find a people more devoted to friendship and partnership with Poland than Ukrainians — people who will always be grateful to Poles for their open hearts and open homes in the face of Russian aggression.Tragically, political egotism blinds. It prevents people from seeing the achievements of past decades, the realities of the present, and the possibility of building a shared future. This is how I interpret the decision of Polish President Karol Nawrocki to strip President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland's highest state honor — on the grounds that one unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, at the request of Ukrainian soldiers themselves, was given an honorary designation in tribute to the Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
