Ukraine returns Polish honours after Warsaw strips Zelenskyy of Order of the White Eagle over UPA unit name

What started the dispute

In late May 2026, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy granted the name “Bohaterów UPA” (Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) to the Independent Special Operations Centre “North” of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. The decision revived deep historical wounds in Poland, where the UPA is held responsible for the Volhynia massacres of the Second World War.

Poland strips the honour

On Friday 19 June, President Karol Nawrocki announced that, after consulting the Chapter of the Order of the White Eagle, he was revoking the decoration awarded to Zelenskyy in 2023 by former president Andrzej Duda. On Saturday Zelenskyy disclosed that he had returned the order. Soon after, former presidents Leonid Kuczma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroszenko all renounced their own Orders of the White Eagle. Other officials including foreign minister Andrij Sybiha, head of the presidential office Kyryło Budanow, his deputy Ihor Żowkwa, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland Wasyl Bodnar gave up Polish state honours.

Kyiv pushes back sharply

Foreign minister Sybiha wrote on the ministry’s Telegram channel that President Nawrocki had “become a destroyer of the positive achievements we managed to build recently” and was “getting applause from Moscow.” He added that “contempt for the president of Ukraine is not only about orders, it is an insult to the Ukrainian soldier and our nation’s right to its own history.” Sybiha said Zelenskyy had not yet decided whether to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) scheduled for 25–26 June in Gdańsk. Former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, in a YouTube video, called the move the deepest crisis in Polish-Ukrainian relations in his memory and claimed Nawrocki “hates Ukrainians as a phenomenon.”

“Nawrocki has become a destroyer of those positive achievements that we managed to build recently. He is getting applause from Moscow for a reason.”

Moscow seizes the moment

Russian officials moved quickly to frame the row as vindication of their longstanding accusations. Security Council deputy chairman Dmitrij Miedwiediew stated there was no middle ground: one either considers UPA leader Andrij Melnyk a fascist or a hero, and anyone choosing hero is a fascist. Federation Council information policy committee chair Aleksiej Puszkow argued that Ukraine’s “loud” glorification of Nazi collaborators gave Russia’s arguments fresh credibility. The state agency TASS quoted Miedwiediew saying the renunciations proved “they are real Nazis.”

“Ukraine has loudly declared its commitment to glorifying Ukrainian Nazis who collaborated with Hitler. Russian accusations of Nazism in Ukraine are gaining new credibility.”

A social-media symbol

Poland (support for Nawrocki’s decision)74%

Ukraine (support for Zelenskyy’s return of order)99.5%

Poland (support for Nawrocki’s decision)

74 %

Ukraine (support for Zelenskyy’s return of order)

99.5 %

Data from the article text

Res Futura Data House found that the topic reached 120 million views in Polish social media, with 74 percent of commenters backing Nawrocki’s decision. On the Ukrainian side, the same window recorded 5,206 mentions, 45.3 million views and 1.4 million reactions across 1,857 channels. The iconic detail, present in 53 percent of discussions, was that the decoration returned to Warsaw via the “Nowa Poczta” courier service “like defective goods.” Among Ukrainian comments, 99.5 percent supported Zelenskyy’s return of the order, while only 0.05 percent criticised it. Users openly displayed pride in the UPA, and the dominant emotion was triumph at the “riposte.”

Mentions5,206

Views (millions)45.3

Reactions (millions)1.4

Mentions

5206

Views (millions)

45.3

Reactions (millions)

1.4

Data from the article text