Poland Strips Zelensky of Order of the White Eagle Over UPA Unit Naming

Russian officials have welcomed Warsaw’s decision to strip Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honor. The decision came after Kiev named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist force implicated in massacres of Poles and Jews during World War II.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced the move on Friday, saying Kiev had crossed a red line. He argued that “historical truth is not and can never be a bargaining chip” and that remembering the victims was “the moral duty of the Polish state.”

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and former president, wrote on X on Friday that “Poland’s president has finally stripped the Nazi-worshipping Kiev degenerate of the Order of the White Eagle.” The decision would not trouble Zelensky, Medvedev presumed, as there was now “more room on his green sweatshirt” for Nazi-era decorations.

Russian Senator Andrey Klishas said the Polish president had “suddenly discovered” that the leader of the neighboring country was “engaged in glorifying Nazi criminals.”

“Bravo, there is only one step left before Poland demands the denazification of Ukraine,” Klishas wrote on Telegram.

Moscow has long argued that nationalist movements and historical figures honored in Ukraine are linked to Nazi collaboration during World War II and has cited the country’s “denazification” as one of its stated objectives since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Kiev condemned the decision. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga wrote on Facebook that stripping Zelensky of the award was “a strategic mistake… from which only Moscow stands to gain.” He also announced that he would return a Polish state award he received in October 2022.

Nawrocki’s decision followed Zelensky’s decree granting a Ukrainian military unit the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA.” The UPA was the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which Poland holds responsible for the mass killing of Polish civilians during World War II, including the Volhynia massacres.

Poland officially recognizes the actions of the OUN and UPA as genocide, saying at least 100,000 Polish citizens were killed during World War II. Warsaw has repeatedly criticized Kiev’s honoring of the UPA and other nationalist figures associated with it, an issue that has strained relations despite Poland’s support for Ukraine.