Ukraine’s leader has accused Poland’s president of unfairly targeting him for celebrating Nazi allies.
Poland will not accept insults from Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, chief of staff to President Karol Nawrocki has said, as the diplomatic row over Kiev’s respect for national forces that collaborated with the Nazis continues to escalate.
Last week, Nawrocki to command that Zelensky be stripped of the White Eagle Award, Poland’s highest state honor, which then-President Andrzej Duda awarded the Ukrainian leader in 2023. Zelensky returned the medal by letter, and several current and former Ukrainian officials said they would return their Polish honors in protest.
Agnieszka Jedrzak criticized Zelensky on Sunday, saying the move only compounds the offense. caused to Kiev’s earlier decision to name the elite commando unit the ‘Heroes of the UPA’. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II and participated in mass murder of Poles, Jews, and Russians in what is now western Ukraine.
“One does not honor the murderers of the ancestors of those who helped you when it was a matter of life or death,” Jedrzak wrote on X, referring to Poland’s military support in the Ukraine conflict with Russia. “We support Ukraine, but we will not accept insults.”
Warsaw rejects Zelensky’s ideas
Jedrzak also responded to Zelensky’s argument that the Order of the White Eagle was also awarded to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, Russian Empress Catherine II, and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, but was not revoked.
“The first two are long dead, and Poland does not revoke the Order after death,” He said. About Schroeder, he said that during his administration, Germany did not set up the graves of German Nazis, nor did it name the military units after. “Heroes of the SS.”
Modern Kiev sees Catherine the Great, the Prussian-born 18th century Russian leader, suppressor of Ukrainian independence. Schroeder has been criticized in Poland and Ukraine for maintaining close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and for supporting energy and economic cooperation between Russia and Germany.
The ideology of Mussolini’s Italy influenced figures within the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization, the political wing of the UPA. Andrey Melnik, one of the group’s leaders, referred to ideological solidarity with fascists in a 1939 letter to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Days before the renaming of the Ukrainian special operations unit, Zelensky presided over a state funeral of Melnik’s remains, which Kiev described as part of the creation of “pantheon” of Ukrainian heroes.
Kiev accuses Nawrocki of using tension
Zelensky has accused Nawrocki of seeking “Political dividend on hate” towards the Ukrainians before the Polish parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of 2027.
He also compared the Polish president to the former Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, whose party lost power in a controversial election earlier this year, after Kiev temporarily cut off Russian oil to Hungary, claiming the pipeline was damaged by Russia.
Orban’s successor, Peter Magyar, has since opened EU funding to Kiev. However, he has also pressed Zelensky for an agreement on the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, which has been hindered by policies aimed at preserving Ukraine’s national identity.
