Poland to remove White Eagle from Zelenskiy

Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on May 29 that he wants the chapter of the Order of the White Eagle to discuss removing the decoration from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The move followed Ukraine’s decision to rename a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, a World War Two-era formation whose legacy remains one of the sharpest disputes between Warsaw and Kyiv. Reuters reported Nawrocki’s remarks from Warsaw, and Poland’s state news agency PAP separately reported that he had proposed stripping Zelenskiy of the country’s highest state honour. ### What exactly did Nawrocki say? Karol Nawrocki told reporters on May 29 that he wanted a state body to discuss taking away Zelenskiy’s award, according to Reuters. Other reports citing the same remarks said Nawrocki was reacting directly to Kyiv’s decision on the military unit and had proposed putting the matter before the order’s chapter, the body that oversees the decoration. (usnews.com) June 8 is the date cited by multiple reports for the next meeting of the chapter of the Order of the White Eagle. Poland’s presidential website says the chapter stands guard over the honour of the order and gives opinions on matters concerning it, while the president serves as grand master of the order. (usnews.com) ### What is the Order of the White Eagle, and when did Zelenskiy get it? April 5, 2023, is when then-Polish President Andrzej Duda awarded Zelenskiy the Order of the White Eagle in Warsaw. The Polish and Ukrainian presidential websites said the award recognized Zelenskiy’s role in deepening relations between Poland and Ukraine and in promoting cooperation for democracy, peace and security in Europe. (aljazeera.com) The Order of the White Eagle is Poland’s highest state distinction. Poland’s presidential website lists it among the orders conferred by the president, and says the chapter of the order is composed of the grand master and five members chosen from recipients of the same honour. ### Why did the UPA name trigger this dispute? Ukraine’s decision involved renaming a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, according to Reuters and other reports on Nawrocki’s statement. (prezydent.pl) In Poland, the UPA is associated with the wartime killing of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, making the group’s public commemoration a recurring source of friction in bilateral ties. (prezydent.pl) Reuters said the insurgents “massacred Poles in World War Two,” while other outlets described the dispute as tied to the memory of the Volhynia massacres. That historical issue has persisted even as Poland has been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion. (usnews.com) ### Is this already a final decision? May 29 was a proposal, not a completed revocation. Reuters reported that Nawrocki wanted the relevant state body to discuss the matter, and the Polish presidential site describes the chapter as an opinion-giving body on questions concerning the order. Those descriptions indicate the process still runs through the order’s formal institutions. (usnews.com) No official notice published in the search results showed that Zelenskiy had already been stripped of the honour as of June 2. The available reporting points instead to the planned chapter discussion. ### Why are people connecting this to Gdańsk and URC 2026? June 25-26, 2026, are the dates for the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, according to the event’s official website. (usnews.com) The conference is being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine and is aimed at mobilizing support for Ukraine’s reconstruction and investment. Social media posts have linked Nawrocki’s move to the run-up to that conference, but the verified reporting located here ties the proposal to the UPA-related renaming decision rather than to the conference itself. (usnews.com) The next dated milestone in the honours dispute is the June 8 chapter meeting; the next major Poland-Ukraine event on the calendar is URC 2026 in Gdańsk later in June. (aljazeera.com) (urc-international.com)