On 27 May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to name an elite Special Operations Forces unit, Heroes of the UPA,after the Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
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He argued that he had done so ‘in order to restore the historical traditions of the national army and taking into account the exemplary performance of the tasks entrusted during the defence of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence’.
To which, Polish President Karol Nawrocki said he had received Zelenskyy’s decision ‘with great sadness’.
‘This is not how relations between nations are built,’ he stressed on Friday during a brief meeting with journalists, in Warsaw. He added that the glorification of the UPA provides Russian propaganda with ‘a lot of oxygen for disinformation’.
In response to this move, he suggested stripping Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest state honour.
“Poland also has the right to shape its own politics of remembrance and historical policy. That is why I took very seriously the appeal of the Polish people and of MP Płaczek [MP Grzegorz Płaczek of the Confederation New Hope party], who sent me such an appeal,” he said. “I have proposed that one of the points should be to strip President Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle.”
The meeting of the Chapter has been scheduled for 8 June.
The Order of the White Eagle was conferred on Zelenskyy on 5 April 2023 by the previous president, Andrzej Duda.
The decoration was awarded ‘for services in deepening relations between Poland and Ukraine, for efforts to ensure security and for unwavering commitment to the defence of human rights’. Duda told Zelenskyy, “Your stance is today saving Europe from a tide of Russian imperialism.”
Zelenskyy, for his part, said at the time that he was accepting the order on behalf of the entire Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian army.
Tusks seeks to calm tensions
Prime Minister Donald Tusk also addressed both Zelenskyy’s decree and Nawrocki’s ensuing decision in the Sejm:
“Our task, the task of every sensible person on both sides of the border, is to cool emotions, because we have one enemy. There are some problems between us, but there must be no hostility or negative emotions, because there is only one adversary,” he told journalists. He added that Zelenskyy’s decision “hurts our historical sensibilities”.
He also commented on the matter on social media, “If we fall out over the past, someone else will win the future. The President of Ukraine should finally understand this. So should the President of Poland. Before it is too late!”.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said in Sopot, during a meeting of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, that he was “disappointed by the failure to take Polish historical sensitivities into account”. Referring to Tusk’s words, he stressed at the same time, “If we quarrel about the past, someone else will impose the future on us”. He added that “only Putin will gain from a Polish-Ukrainian row over history”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Maciej Wiewiór underlined that the ministry assessed Zelenskyy’s decision “unequivocally negatively”. The Polish Foreign Ministry lodged a diplomatic protest in the matter, and Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki also summoned Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar.
“The deep dissatisfaction with this decision was expressed on 28 May in a conversation with the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland by Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry Marcin Bosacki, and on 29 May in a conversation with Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Oleksandr Mishchenko by chargé d’affaires in Kyiv Piotr Łukasiewicz,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also stressed that “in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggressive war against Ukraine and the threat to the security of the entire region, Polish-Ukrainian relations, which are crucial for both our states and nations, should not become hostage to a difficult history”.
Former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Wałęsa reacted even more sharply, “By honouring the bandits from the UPA, the President of Ukraine has insulted me and all our compatriots who were murdered. As a result, I have publicly removed the Ukrainian flag from my lapel. I will continue to help the Ukrainian nation in its fight against the Soviets. I refuse to support President Zelenskyy!” he wrote on his social media accounts.
Ukraine’s position
The first public reaction from the Ukrainian side came from the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi.
“Every city has its own heroes. There were difficult times between Poles and Ukrainians, but now we are on the same side. We are fighting Russia, which is attacking democracy not only in Ukraine. We must remember that every state has its own heroes. We do not know exactly what it was like 50–100 years ago. Often this history was distorted. Russia did everything to make sure that information was not 100 per cent reliable. I know of cases where the Soviet army put on UPA uniforms,” he said in an interview with Polsat News.
The mayor of Lviv also published a lengthy comment on social media, in which he wrote, among other things:
“We will always remember the extraordinary mobilisation of Polish society, which sincerely and devotedly helped and continues to help Ukrainians from the first days of the full-scale war. (…) What Nawrocki has set in motion today will, unfortunately, also be remembered. Unless there is enough wisdom to stop picking on the names of Ukrainian military units and to focus on supporting an army that is holding the largest front in Europe since the Second World War and is buying time with its blood for the entire civilised world to prepare for the difficult challenges of the future”.
What was the UPA?
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was an armed formation active between 1942 and 1949, linked to the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which sought to create an independent Ukrainian state. It fought against the Germans, the Soviet Union and Polish forces.
The Polish side holds the UPA responsible for the genocide of the Polish population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945 (the so-called Volhynia massacre), which has been officially recognised in resolutions of the Polish Sejm and Senate.
According to estimates by the Institute of National Remembrance and Polish historians, around 100,000–120,000 Poles were killed in organised UPA actions, as well as Ukrainian citizens who warned their Polish neighbours of the impending danger. The climax came on 11 July 1943 (“bloody Sunday”), when around 100 Polish villages were attacked.
By contrast, some Ukrainian historians and politicians see these events as part of a two-sided conflict during the war. At the same time, they do not deny the participation of UPA fighters in atrocities, but oppose classifying them as a planned extermination of a significant part of the Polish population in Volhynia.
In Ukrainian public opinion, the UPA is seen above all as a group of heroes in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence against the German and Soviet occupiers. Crimes against Poles are often presented as a ‘civil war’, ‘retaliation’ or the result of Soviet infiltration. Many Ukrainians regard UPA members as symbols of national resistance.
Historical disputes between Poland and Ukraine regularly affect bilateral relations, despite cooperation in the face of Russian aggression. In recent years, steps towards reconciliation have been taken, including joint commemorations of the victims of the Volhynia massacre and Ukraine’s lifting in November 2024 of the ban on exhuming the victims.
