Tusk on Zelenskyy’s stripped Order of White Eagle: Conflict between Poland and Ukraine pleases Putin

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has reacted to President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to strip Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle.

He wrote about this on the social media platform X, according to Censor.NET.

The Polish government’s reaction

The head of the Polish government has called on politicians in Warsaw and Kyiv to return to a sober analysis of the security situation.

"The conflict between Poland and Ukraine pleases Putin and shocks our allies. The task of Presidents Zelenskyy and Nawrocki is to defuse tensions, not to escalate them. The front line lies elsewhere," Tusk emphasised.

As a reminder, on 19 June, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the country’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, amid a scandal over the naming of an elite Ukrainian Special Operations Forces unit after the Heroes of the UPA.

The scandal surrounding the unit named after the Heroes of the UPA

Tensions in Ukrainian-Polish relations flared up after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree on 26 May awarding the Separate Special Operations Centre "North" of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Forces the honorary designation "in honour of the Heroes of the UPA". The text of the document stated that the decision had been taken with the aim of "restoring the historical traditions of the national army".
On 29 May, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced his intention to strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest honour, which had been awarded to him in 2023 by the then Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Wałęsa, in a gesture of protest, demonstratively removed the badge featuring the Ukrainian flag that he always wore, and accused Zelenskyy of "honouring UPA bandits", which, in his words, "offended him personally and all the Poles who were killed".
Bartosz Cichocki, the former Polish Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine, officially returned the Order of Merit, which Zelenskyy had awarded him in 2022, in response to the same decision.
Marcin Przydacz, Head of the International Policy Bureau at the Office of the President of Poland, stated that Volodymyr Zelenskyy should personally telephone his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki and formally apologise for naming the Special Operations Forces unit ‘after the Heroes of the UIA’.