Head of the Office of the President of Poland: Ukrainian officials returning the orders themselves asked for help

Brief retelling from RIA II

The head of the Polish Presidential Office, Zbigniew Bogucki, said that Ukrainian officials returning Polish orders had previously asked for help.

Polish leader Karol Nawrocki deprived Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle for glorifying UPA figures.

Bogutsky recalled the assistance provided by Poland to Ukraine and quoted a poem by the Polish poet Ludwik Kropinski about ingratitude.

WARSAW, June 22 - RIA Novosti. Ukrainian officials returning Polish orders themselves had previously begged for help, said the head of the Polish Presidential Office, Zbigniew Bogucki.

On June 19, Polish leader Karol Nawrocki deprived Vladimir Zelensky of the highest Polish state award - the Order of the White Eagle - for glorifying UPA figures * (recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation and banned). After this, Zelensky expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that this order was once awarded to Benito Mussolini, Catherine II and Gerhard Schröder, without depriving them of this award, despite the extremely negative attitude towards them in Poland.

“Representatives of the Ukrainian government are handing over Polish awards with a light hand, forgetting that the same hands were extended for help, and this help came from Polish hands: from the Polish government, local authorities, non-governmental organizations and millions of Poles,” Bogutsky wrote on platform X (formerly Twitter).

In his entry, he quoted the poem “On Ingratitude” by the Polish poet of the 18th-19th centuries, Ludwik Kropinski, citing the following lines: “We would both have great merits before God if the first one remembered and the second one forgot.”

At the end of May, Zelensky took part in the reburial of the remains of one of the leaders of the OUN-UPA* Andrei Melnik and his wife in the Kyiv region. In addition, he assigned the name “In the Name of the Heroes of the UPA*” to the separate special operations center “North” of the special operations forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In March, Ukrainian media reported that the remains of other OUN leaders could also be reburied.

After this, Karol Nawrocki initiated consideration of the issue of depriving Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, which he was awarded by the previous head of state Andrzej Duda in 2023.