Updated / Tuesday, 9 Jun 2026 07:00
President Zelensky renamed an elite Ukrainian army unit after the UPA, a controversial nationalist force
A Polish state body that oversees the awarding of the country's top honours list met on Monday to discuss a proposal from Polish President Karol Nawrocki to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of an award he received from the Polish state.
In 2023, Mr Zelensky was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state honour, for improving relations between Ukraine and Poland.
Mr Nawrocki's proposal to revoke that award follows the renaming by Mr Zelensky last month of an elite Ukrainian army unit after the UPA, a Ukrainian nationalist force that murdered more than 100,000 Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945 in regions that are today located in western Ukraine.
Poland officially regards the massacres as genocide, whereas some in Ukraine regard the UPA as heroic insurgents who fought against Nazi and Soviet occupation.
The Ukrainian unit at the centre of the dispute was renamed as the "Heroes of the UPA", a move that was widely criticised in Poland.
Mr Nawrocki, a historian who has demanded the full exhumation of all Polish victims from mass burial sites in western Ukraine, said in late May that by "glorifying bandits and murderers", Ukraine is not "ready to become part of the European family".
The massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists took place in the historical provinces of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which, prior to World War II, were part of the Polish Second Republic.
According to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, between 10,000 and 12,000 Ukrainians were killed by Poles in retaliatory acts.
Adam Leszczyński, the director of Poland's state-run Institute of Political Thought, described Mr Nawrocki's demand to revoke the award as "legitimate".
"Unfortunately, there is a lack of understanding from the Ukrainian side of the importance of Volhynia to many Polish people," Mr Leszczyński told RTÉ News.
Mr Nawrocki, he said, has a lot of support for his proposal, "even from people who did not vote for him".
The mass murders remain a contentious issue between Warsaw and Kyiv despite the former's steadfast support for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Exhumations at burial sites were halted by Ukrainian authorities in 2017 following a dispute over the removal of a monument to World War II-era Ukrainian nationalists in eastern Poland.
However, a breakthrough was made by Polish and Ukrainian officials in late 2024 and exhumations resumed at one site in western Ukraine in April 2025.
Only last week Ukraine's Institute of National Remembrance said that Ukrainian authorities had approved exhumations at two other mass grave sites in the Lviv region.
Senior Polish and Ukrainian officials met in Warsaw at the weekend to dial down the tension, while Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha posted on social media last week that the renaming of the unit after the UPA was chosen by the Ukrainian military.
"I know for certain that our military had absolutely no anti-Polish intent," he wrote.
That argument is unlikely to convince Mr Nawrocki, a nationalist who last year placed the issue of exhuming Polish victims of the Volhynia massacres at the core of his election campaign.
Taking to social media platform X, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on Mr Nawrocki and Mr Zelensky to hold "a direct and honest conversation" to resolve the matter.
"Cooperation serves the interests of both our states and nations, while conflict serves Moscow's interests. This is surely obvious to all of us," wrote Mr Tusk.
Late yesterday, the body that oversees the awarding of the Order of the White Eagle presented its opinion to Mr Nawrocki, according to Rafał Leśkiewicz, the president's spokesperson, adding that Mr Nawrocki will make a decision on the matter "in due course".
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