The second president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma also refused the Order of the White Eagle

The second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma also refused the Order of the White Eagle due to Warsawʼs decision regarding Volodymyr Zelensky.

This was reported by the press secretary of the Leonid Kuchma Presidential Foundation "Ukraine" Darka Olifer.

Kuchma received Polandʼs highest state award back in 1997.

"Today I have no choice but to refuse the high Polish order. Ukraine did not accept the battle from Russia, which justified its invasion with historical claims, so that today other countries would dictate our history to us and determine who we should honor. I believe that friendship and allied relations between Ukraine and Poland will be preserved. But today I feel sadness and anxiety," he said.

On the eve, Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle. All because the President of Ukraine signed a decree on awarding one of the SOF units the name of Heroes of UPA.

After that, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and the head of the Presidentʼs Office Kyrylo Budanov refused their awards — the Commanderʼs Cross with a Star of the Order "For Merit to Poland" and the Golden Officerʼs Cross of the Order "For Merit to Poland".

Scandal surrounding the name of the SOF unit

On May 26, Zelensky signed a decree awarding the Separate Special Operations Center "North" of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the honorary title "named after the Heroes of UPA". The document states that this was done "to restore the historical traditions of the national army".

Later, former Polish President Lech Walesa reported that due to this decree he would stop wearing the badge with the Ukrainian flag, which he had had since the beginning of the full-scale war, and current President Karol Nawrocki proposed to deprive Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Polandʼs highest state award.

For the same reason, the Ukrainian flag, which had been hanging there since 2022 along with the flags of Poland and the EU, was removed from the town hall in Lublin, Poland.

And the Vice Speaker of the Polish Sejm Krzysztof Bosak called for blocking Ukraineʼs movement towards the EU until Kyiv "departs from the cult of criminals and unblocks all exhumations" of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha explained Zelenskyʼs decree as follows: Ukrainians did not want to offend Poles and chose the name for the SOF unit to remember those who fought against imperial Moscow many years ago.

Amid the scandal, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the presidents of Ukraine and Poland to have a "direct and frank conversation" because, according to him, "diplomacy has not yielded any results" to resolve the conflict between the countries. Tusk was referring to the meetings of the Ukrainian delegation with Polish officials.

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