Zelenskyy and Nawrocki met on sidelines of NATO summit: It is important for countries to maintain mutual understanding
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, held a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara on 8 July. The talks took place for the first time since the Ukrainian leader was stripped of the Order of the White Eagle following the renaming of a military unit "after the Heroes of the UPA".
The head of state announced this on social media, according to Censor.NET.
Details of the meeting
Zelenskyy said it had been an "important and necessary conversation"; the leaders spoke for over an hour.
"We face a single, shared threat: Russia. It is vital that we maintain mutual understanding and support, and act in unison. Our countries need nothing but strong relations. We have agreed to continue the dialogue," the President added.
Relations between Ukraine and Poland
- Tensions in Ukrainian-Polish relations flared up after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree on 26 May conferring the honorary title ‘in the name of the Heroes of the UPA’ on the ‘North’ Special Operations Centre of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 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.
- Lech Wałęsa, former President of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, ostentatiously removed the badge bearing the Ukrainian flag that he always wore as a sign of protest, and accused Zelenskyy of "honouring UPA bandits", which, he said, "offended him personally and all the Poles who were killed".
- Bartosz Cichocki, the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Ukraine, has, as a result of this same decision, officially returned the Order "For Merit", which Zelenskyy had awarded him in 2022.
- 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 a Special Operations Forces unit ‘after the Heroes of the UPA’.
- Subsequently, the President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, stripped the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of the country’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, amid a scandal over the naming of an elite unit of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces after the Heroes of the UPA.
