A dispute over one of Poland’s highest state honors has escalated into one of the most sensitive diplomatic tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, highlighting how historical memory continues to shape contemporary geopolitics in Eastern Europe.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland’s most prestigious state decoration) prompted an immediate and symbolic response from Kyiv. Zelensky returned the award to the Polish side, saying he had accepted it not as a personal distinction, but as recognition of the Ukrainian people resisting Russian aggression.
The controversy was triggered by Ukraine’s decision to name a unit of its Special Operations Forces after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a wartime resistance movement that remains deeply polarizing. In Ukraine, the UPA is widely viewed as part of the struggle for national independence against Soviet rule. In Poland, however, it is inseparable from the memory of the Volhynia massacres of 1943–44, in which tens of thousands of Polish civilians were killed during World War II.
Against this historical backdrop, President Nawrocki justified the revocation of Zelensky’s award, originally granted in 2023 by former President Andrzej Duda for his role in strengthening Polish-Ukrainian relations during the war.
The fallout quickly extended beyond a single decoration. Several senior Ukrainian figures and former presidents including: Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko, publicly renounced Polish state honors they had previously received. They were joined by senior officials, among them Ukraine’s foreign minister Andriy Sybiha and military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, in what has become an unusually coordinated diplomatic and symbolic protest.
Sybiha called the Polish president’s decision “a strategic mistake that benefits Moscow alone.” In a statement, he expressed regret that “emotions prevailed in Warsaw,” arguing that political decisions had shifted from addressing shared challenges to symbolic gestures that risk undermining bilateral trust. He noted that over the past 18 months, Kyiv and Warsaw had worked on a range of historical and humanitarian initiatives, including joint historical commissions and search-and-exhumation efforts.
Budanov, in turn, described the move as a “hostile act” that would be exploited by Russia to divide Ukraine and Poland. Announcing his own renunciation of a Polish award, he argued that both nations share a complex historical legacy that should be approached through dialogue rather than political escalation. He also pointed to what he described as inconsistencies in how historical figures are treated in European honor systems, noting that Benito Mussolini remains among past recipients of the Order of the White Eagle.
As the dispute unfolded, it moved from diplomacy into the realm of historical interpretation, an arena where narratives remain deeply divided across borders. Timothy Snyder, renowned historian and professor at the University of Toronto, has repeatedly warned that memory politics in Eastern Europe can become as consequential as battlefield dynamics. In an interview with Newsweek Polska, he cautioned that “the war of memory is much more comfortable for politicians than the real war,” adding that political debate must begin with present realities rather than historical grievance.
“To judge decisions taken in wartime without the context of a prolonged and brutal conflict is a mistake,” Snyder said, referring to Ukraine’s wartime commemorative choices. He noted that Ukrainians and Poles often interpret the same historical events through different lenses: for Poles, the UPA is primarily associated with the Volhynia tragedy; for many Ukrainians, it is also linked to later resistance against Soviet rule. The danger, he suggested, lies in selectively remembering only one part of a complex history.
His starkest warning was geopolitical rather than historical: “Russia will lose on the battlefield. But in Warsaw and Kyiv, it can win the war of memory.”
The dispute underscores a broader vulnerability in the Polish-Ukrainian relationship: the coexistence of strategic partnership and unresolved historical trauma. Since 2022, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most important military and political supporters, while Ukraine’s resistance has been widely viewed in Warsaw as central to European security.
Yet even amid this alliance, historical grievances remain politically potent. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has described the escalation as a “strategic mistake,” warning that it risks weakening both countries at a moment when their cooperation is most critical.
Zelensky, meanwhile, has pointed to what he sees as an imbalance in political engagement, noting that President Nawrocki has not visited Ukraine during his presidency term. He also referenced a past visit to Poland during which he was presented with material on the Volhynia tragedy immediately after a formal handshake, an episode that, he suggested, illustrates the persistent sensitivity and asymmetry surrounding historical memory in bilateral exchanges.
The episode reflects a broader tension at the heart of European politics today: how to reconcile the demands of historical justice with the imperatives of contemporary security. For Ukraine and Poland, two nations bound together by geography, war, and shared vulnerability, the challenge is not only to remember the past, but to ensure it does not fracture a present defined by a common threat from Moscow.
For now, the dispute remains unresolved. But its implications extend beyond diplomatic protocol or symbolic honors. It is, at its core, a test of whether two close allies can sustain unity in the face of history’s most persistent and politically usable divisions.
Nadia Gereliouk
