Zelensky returns Polish award as WWII row strains alliance

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top officials said on Saturday they were returning Polish awards, in a spiralling row with key ally Poland over WWII massacres.

Zelensky infuriated neighbouring Poland this month by naming a military unit after the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that took part in massacres against Poles in WWII.

On Friday, hard-right Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle -- the highest honour in Poland -- despite requests from both Kyiv and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

"We believed that the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023, was meant for the Ukrainian People and our army. That is what was said at the time. Today, I sent the Order back to the President of Poland," Zelensky said on social media.

He posted a photo of the order being packaged for shipment from an ordinary post office, addressed to the Polish presidential chancellery

"Ukraine is grateful to the Polish People for their support and cooperation," Zelensky's statement added.

In a statement revoking the award given by his predecessor, Nawrocki said that the move "is not directed against Ukrainian people" and that Poland would continue to support Ukraine.

'Gift to aggressor'

On Saturday, Zelensky's top aide and Ukraine's ambassador to Warsaw followed Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga in saying they were relinquishing awards bestowed by Poland as a way of showing solidarity with the president.

They argued the move by Nawrocki benefitted Russia, whose war with Ukraine is now in its fifth year.

"This is a gift to the Moscow aggressor, who will certainly use it against both of our countries," Zelensky aide Kyrylo Budanov said on social media.

He said he was returning the Gold Officer's Cross of the Polish Order of Merit.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Warsaw Vasyl Bodnar said on Saturday he was relinquishing his Knight's Cross of the Polish Order of Merit, describing Nawrocki's move as a "gesture directed at the entire Ukrainian people".

Sybiga said on Friday he planned to return an award he received from Poland in 2022 after the "unjustified, impulsive and disrespectful" decision.

Russian officials, who have repeatedly evoked WWII to justify the invasion by saying they are fighting "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine, welcomed the decision.

"Poland's president has finally stripped (Zelensky) of the Order of the White Eagle," said Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy chair of Russia's security council.

The UPA fought both the Nazis and the Soviets in its quest for a Ukrainian state, and killed thousands of Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945 in Volhynia -- a Ukrainian region that was part of Poland before WWII.

Nawrocki said Kyiv's "decision to glorify the UPA is not only outrageous" but also "deeply disappointing", undermining "reconciliation" between the two nations.

Tusk -- whose government is at loggerheads with Nawrocki -- criticised Zelensky's move but said the Ukrainian leader had reassured him he did not want to offend Poles. He appealed to both nations not to lose solidarity and not to let "history ruin our future."

Poland has been one of Ukraine's main allies during the war, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for Western aid to Kyiv.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)