Polish honours body reviews proposal to revoke Zelensky award

A Polish state honours body has been meeting in Warsaw since this morning to consider a proposal from President Karol Nawrocki to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland's Order of the White Eagle. The award is the country's highest state honour, and Mr Zelensky received it in 2023 for improving relations between Poland and Ukraine. The review comes after a dispute over a Ukrainian military unit renamed last month in a way that has angered officials in Warsaw.

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According to the supplied material, the unit was renamed the "Heroes of the UPA", a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist force known as the UPA. Polish officials say the UPA was responsible for the killing of more than 100,000 Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945 in areas that are now in western Ukraine. Poland officially describes those killings as genocide, while some in Ukraine view the UPA as anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi insurgents.

The proposal to revoke the honour was put forward by Mr Nawrocki, who is described as a historian. The row has reopened one of the most sensitive issues in Polish-Ukrainian relations. The historical provinces of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, where the massacres took place, were part of the Polish Second Republic before the Second World War.

The supplied material also says the Polish Institute of National Remembrance estimates that between 10,000 and 12,000 Ukrainians were killed by Poles in retaliatory violence. That history continues to shape political debate in both countries, even as Poland has remained a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. The current dispute is also linked to the issue of exhumations at burial sites in western Ukraine.

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Ukrainian authorities halted exhumations in 2017 after a dispute over the removal of a monument to World War Two-era Ukrainian nationalists in eastern Poland. The material says there was a breakthrough in late 2024, allowing exhumations to resume at one site in western Ukraine in April 2025. It also says Ukrainian authorities approved exhumations at two further mass grave sites in the Lviv region only last week.

Mr Nawrocki has previously demanded the full exhumation of Polish victims from mass burial sites in western Ukraine. In late May, he said that by "glorifying bandits and murderers", Ukraine was not "ready to become part of the European family". Senior Polish and Ukrainian officials met in Warsaw at the weekend in an effort to reduce tensions.

The supplied material also notes that the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, posted on social media, although the excerpt provided does not include the rest of his message. What happens next will depend on the state body's review and any response from Kyiv. It is not yet clear whether the proposal to revoke the Order of the White Eagle will be accepted, or whether the dispute will affect the recent progress on exhumations.

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