WARSAW — Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki has stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle — Poland’s highest honor — amid an increasingly bitter dispute between Kyiv and Warsaw over a World War II-era Ukrainian military unit.  

The move late on Friday comes days before Zelenskyy is expected to visit Poland, and puts an intense strain one of the most important alliances in the war against Russia. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha slammed Nawrocki for “a strategic mistake” from which “only Moscow benefits.”   

Since 2022, Warsaw has been one of the most committed supporters of Kyiv against the mutual arch-enemy: Russia. The relationship is historically complex, however, and the nationalist camp in Poland has sought to make political capital out of tensions over migration and has put emphasis on Ukrainian massacres of Poles in World War II.  

The latest flashpoint centers on Zelenskyy’s decision to name a military unit after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Any reference to the UPA evokes painful memories in Poland as the partisans murdered tens of thousands of Poles in an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Volhynia region in 1943-1945.  

Late on Friday, Nawrocki — a historian specializing in Nazi and Soviet crimes against Poles — made the dramatic step of depriving Zelenskyy of the country’s highest national accolade, which was granted in 2023.

He insisted his move did not represent a shift in Poland’s strategic policy in the war but insisted that Poles must not “betray the sacrifices of our ancestors with silence.”

Stressing the civilian victims of the massacres, Nawrocki said “naming one of Ukraine’s military units after UPA criminals carries significance that extends far beyond Ukraine’s internal affairs.”

Polish anger

Zelenskyy last month issued a decree naming a special operations unit “Heroes of the UPA,” saying he wanted to honor its battlefield success against Russian forces. To many in Ukraine, the UPA is viewed as a valiant unit that battled both the Nazis and the Soviets in a failed effort to carve out an independent state.

That decree sparked an immediate outcry across Poland’s political spectrum. 

A survey by SW Research in Poland earlier this month showed that 51.9 percent of those polled said their view of Ukraine and Zelenskyy had worsened after the Ukrainian president’s decision.

Politicians from both Ukraine and Poland tried to head off a full diplomatic clash. Sybiha emphasized Ukraine was working with Poland to defuse historical tensions by exhuming the remains of people killed by the UPA during the war and giving them proper burials.

He also stressed that there was no anti-Polish sentiment behind the naming decision.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, stands beside Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki in Warsaw on Dec. 19, 2025. | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

In Brussels on Thursday, Zelenskyy met with Poland’s center-right Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political adversary of Nawrocki, who wants to avoid the historical rifts from weighing on the broader strategic relationship.

The two didn’t directly address the UPA dispute, but the Ukrainian president underlined the strength of the relationship with Poland.

“I am grateful to Poland for supporting Ukraine from the first days of Russian invasion, and this is something that is truly important for our region and all of Europe,” he said.

Order of the White Eagle

Ukraine’s leader received the Order of the White Eagle from then-President Andrzej Duda in a 2023 ceremony celebrating his role in strengthening Polish-Ukrainian relations and defending his country in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

Polish law allows a state honor to be revoked if “the decorated person has committed an act as a result of which that person has become unworthy of the order or decoration.”

The White Eagle dates back to 1705 and has been awarded to notables like Poland’s legendary anti-communist leader Lech Wałęsa and Pope John Paul II but also to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a close friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Dictator Benito Mussolini was also a holder.

It has never been permanently stripped from anyone until Friday.

Bloody history

The clash over wartime mass killings by the UPA — and smaller-scale retaliations by Polish fighters — is hardly new.

The deaths have overshadowed Polish-Ukrainian relations since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, periodically flaring over memorials, exhumations and Kyiv’s treatment of the partisan army’s legacy. 

Over the past month, debate has raged in Poland since Nawrocki said he was weighing up whether to strip Zelenskyy of his medal.

Deputy Science Minister Andrzej Szeptycki, whose family’s intertwined Polish-Ukrainian lineage dates back centuries, was attacked earlier this month for stating that the UPA is viewed differently in Ukraine.

“It was a unit that — regardless of what you say about the Volhynia massacre — fought for Ukraine’s independence,” Szeptycki said in a radio interview, and compared the UPA to Poland’s anti-communist guerrillas after the end of World War II.

Deputy Science Minister Andrzej Szeptycki was attacked earlier this month for stating that the UPA is viewed differently in Ukraine. | Martin Bertrand/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

That sparked an outcry.

“Why are there Ukrainians in this government who insult Poles?” said Przemysław Czarnek, a leading MP with the right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, who called for Szeptycki to be fired for “national treason.”

As a Polish minister, Szeptycki should reflect “the Polish perspective and the Polish national interest,” said Jacek Sasin, another senior PiS MP.

But Szeptycki hasn’t been fired from the government and Tusk warned against comments that “embolden larger groups of people to feed xenophobia, contempt for people with different views, and contempt for people whose background does not fit the standards of pure Polishness.”

Tusk, whose centrist Civic Platform party is locked in a political struggle with Nawrocki and PiS ahead of next year’s parliamentary election, warned that the escalating dispute with Kyiv could undermine Polish-Ukrainian unity and ultimately benefit Russia.

Earlier this month, he called on Nawrocki and Zelenskyy to meet to iron out their differences, and warned: “Conflict serves Moscow’s interests. This is surely obvious to all of us.” 

The rift between Warsaw and Kyiv reflects wider tensions involving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees who have made their home in Poland. Despite playing a key role in Poland’s economy, they have become a target for anti-immigrant and right-wing groups.

Tusk’s government has also begun phasing out some special wartime support measures for Ukrainians, tightening access to some social benefits, health care and accommodation.

Both the president and the government have signaled that unresolved historical disputes remain a major obstacle — on a par with contemporary topics involving agriculture, truckers and other issues — as Poland worries about the implications of allowing Ukraine into the EU. 

Kyiv is trying to keep the dispute from poisoning relations with a key ally.

As Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told a press briefing on June 10: “The historical dimension is not for politics. We would very much like it to remain there, in the realm of historians.”