President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend a major summit in Poland later this month, an MP from his ruling party has said, despite an ongoing row over wartime history that has strained ties between Warsaw and Kyiv.
Mykyta Poturayev, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, told Polish state news agency PAP on Saturday that the Ukrainian leader was expected at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026, scheduled for June 25–26 in the northern port city of Gdańsk.
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“There are such plans,” Poturayev said. “I know that all of us [the Ukrainian participants] are planning to come, although I cannot speak on his [Zelensky’s] behalf.”
The annual conference brings together governments, international institutions, businesses and aid organizations to discuss Ukraine’s reconstruction needs and mobilize investment as the country continues to fight off Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Anger in Poland
Zelensky’s appearance had been called into question after he sparked outrage in Poland by honouring a Ukrainian military unit with a name linked to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) – a World War Two-era nationalist force.
UPA is regarded by many Ukrainians as an independence movement that fought against Soviet rule. In Poland, however, it is widely associated with the killing of tens of thousands of Polish civilians in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions during the war.
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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.
‘Crisis of trust’
The dispute has added strain to relations between Warsaw and Kyiv, close allies since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist, has said Zelensky should be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour, which he received in 2023.
Poland’s centrist coalition government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has taken a more cautious line, though Tusk recently warned Kyiv that his administration would adopt a “hard”, business-like approach to Ukraine if the dispute is not resolved.
“I have suggested to the Ukrainians that they treat this evident crisis of trust seriously,” Tusk told reporters last week, adding that interpretations of history differ but that “mutual sensitivities” must be respected.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war, providing military, humanitarian and political backing.
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