The row with Poland over Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s conduct is intensifying.
First, Poland rescinded the Order of the White Eagle it awarded to him. Next, Zelensky formally returned the award.
Then, in a gesture supporting Zelensky, other Ukrainian politicians also relinquished their Polish state awards, These include:
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha
- Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov
- Budanov’s deputy, Ihor Zhovkva
- Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar.
Former Ukrainian presidents Petro Poroshenko, Leonid Kuchma, and Viktor Yushchenko subsequently relinquished their own individual Orders of the White Eagle.
Zelensky enraged Polish politicians when he named a present-day Ukrainian army unit “Heroes of the UPA”—making it the namesake of partisans who massacred over a hundred thousand Polish civilians during World War II.
“Both sides are to blame,” said former president Bronisław Komorowski on the confusion over the Order, seeking compromise:
Both presidents worked hard to damage Polish-Ukrainian relations and unearth certain problems inherited from history.
But 2001 to 2004’s Polish PM Leszek Cezary Miller was more scathing:
If everyone is so eager to return what they received, then let them return the MiGs they received, the tanks, and the weapons. That would be a gesture, wouldn’t it?
