Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday that he was revoking the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state distinction, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The decision, delivered in a video address, was triggered by Zelensky’s decree of 26 May conferring the honorary title “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) on a special operations unit of Ukraine’s armed forces. Kyiv’s foreign ministry swiftly condemned the move as a “strategic mistake” and “disrespectful”, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha declaring he would return his own Polish state award in protest.

In Warsaw, the presidential chancellery argued that the UPA remains, for the majority of Polish society, a formation responsible for the killing of some 100,000 Polish civilians during the Second World War — acts Poland’s parliament has recognised as genocide. Nawrocki stressed that the revocation did not alter Poland’s military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, but insisted that “historical truth is not, and can never be, a bargaining chip.” Ukrainian officials, by contrast, view the UPA as a symbol of resistance against both Nazi and Soviet forces, and Sybiha stated that “no president of another country will dictate our history to us.” The rift also exposed a division within Poland’s own leadership: Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose liberal coalition has sought to manage historical tensions through dialogue, warned that the conflict “pleases Putin and shocks our allies” and urged both presidents to lower the temperature.

The row lands days before Poland is due to co-host the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk on 25–26 June, an event bringing together the EU, G7 and other donors. It remains unclear whether Zelensky will attend. For the revocation to take legal effect, it requires the countersignature of Prime Minister Tusk, who has not yet indicated his decision. European diplomats note that the dispute risks overshadowing the conference and could strain the broader Western coalition supporting Kyiv, at a moment when Ukraine is also navigating the early stages of EU accession negotiations.

The UPA operated primarily in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions during the 1940s, fighting Soviet and German forces while also carrying out mass killings of Polish and Jewish civilians, according to Polish and international historical accounts. In Ukraine, the group is commemorated as a national liberation movement, and its red-and-black banner is frequently displayed by frontline troops. Warsaw and Kyiv had made recent headway on the sensitive issue of exhuming Polish victims, and a December meeting between the two presidents signalled progress on historical reconciliation. The current dispute, however, has revived deep-seated grievances. The dossier now hinges on Tusk’s formal response and on whether the two governments can contain the fallout before the Gdańsk conference.