President Karol Nawrocki He decided to take the Order of the Eagle White President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensk. The official statement on this matter was published on the website of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.
The decision is directly related to further actions of Ukrainian authorities, which, in the opinion of the Polish President, constitute a public glorification of the formations responsible for genocide on the Polish civilian population in Volyn and Eastern Małopolska.
Official justification
In his speech, President Nawrocki stressed that giving Ukrainian military units names referring to "UPA heroes" and other forms of commemoration of Stepan Bandera and his people are incompatible with the Polish state ration and respect for victims of the Volyn massacre.
"We cannot honor those who glorify the murderers of Polish women and children. The Order of the White Eagle is the highest state distinction that should be awarded to people respecting the historical truth and memory of the victims," the President stressed.
Nawrocki pointed out that Poland From the beginning, she supported Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression, but this does not mean agreeing to lie the history and building Ukrainian national identity on symbols responsible for crimes against Poles.
Background of the decision
The Order of the White Eagle was given to Volodymyr Zelenski in 2022 by President Andrzej Duda in a gesture of solidarity after the outbreak of a full-scale war. After four years, in the face of the systematic glorification of the UPA by the Ukrainian authorities, President Nawrocki felt that it would be indefensible to continue maintaining this distinction.
President Nawrocki's decision is one of the strongest in Polish-Ukrainian relations since the beginning of the war and shows a change in the tone of Polish historical diplomacy towards Kiev.
Source: President.pl
