Polish President to Decide ‘In Due Time’ On Stripping Zelensky of Top Honor

Polish President Karol Nawrocki will decide “in due time” whether to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland’s highest state honor after receiving the opinion of a presidential advisory body, his spokesperson said on Monday.

The council’s debate was triggered by Zelensky’s decision last month to sign a decree naming a unit of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the “Heroes of the UPA,” a reference to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a nationalist force that carried out massacres of Poles during World War II. 

This move has opened a fresh fault line between Warsaw and Kyiv, despite Poland having been one of Ukraine’s strongest backers since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.  

Nawrocki, a nationalist who has a background in history, had asked the council to consider whether Zelensky should be stripped of the distinction. 

“The Council of the Order of the White Eagle presented its opinion to President Karol Nawrocki, who will make a decision in due time,” spokesperson Rafal Leśkiewicz said on X following a meeting of the council.  

He did not reveal what recommendation it had made. 

The Order of the White Eagle was awarded to Zelensky on April 5, 2023, by then-President Andrzej Duda for strengthening ties between the neighboring countries and supporting democracy, peace and security in Europe.  

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Stripping Zelensky of the medal would likely mark a sharp rupture in diplomatic relations between the countries. 

The legal question 

Under Polish law, the president can initiate the procedures to revoke the Order of the White Eagle after consulting the council if a recipient is deemed no longer worthy of the award.  

While the law states clearly that the president has autonomy in bestowing orders, experts say that any decision to strip them away would require a countersignature from Prime Minister Donald Tusk. 

This means Nawrocki now has the procedural basis to move forward with revocation — but it remains unclear whether he would succeed, given that Tusk has signaled he is reluctant to sign such a decree and escalate tensions and would prefer a diplomatic solution. 

Competing narratives 

Nawrocki has argued that honoring the UPA plays into the hands of Russian propaganda. Zelensky said the military unit received the honorary title to restore the historical traditions of Ukraine’s armed forces.  

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has added that “only Moscow benefits” from divisions between the two countries, urging both sides not to allow disputes over history to undermine their current cooperation against Russian aggression. 

Troubled history 

Historians estimate that around 100,000 Polish civilians were killed between 1943 and 1945 in ethnic-cleansing campaigns carried out by Ukrainian nationalist formations, including the UPA, in territories that now form part of western Ukraine.  

Poland regards the killings as genocide, while many Ukrainians see the UPA chiefly as a movement that fought for Ukrainian independence against Soviet rule. 

As tensions rose, Kyrylo Budanov — Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and formerly the country’s military intelligence chief — traveled to Warsaw last week for talks with senior Polish officials. Both sides indicated they wanted to keep channels of dialogue open, though no breakthrough was announced.