Before returning the Order of the White Eagle to Polish President Karol Nawrocki via "Nova Post", Ukraine tried to resolve the conflict diplomatically.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in an interview with TSN.
“The head of my office and the first deputy, [Kyrylo] Budanov and [Serhiy] Kyslytsia, said: ʼWe want to fly, we will resolve the issue with the Poles — with Karol’s administration.’ I said: ʼYou will not resolve this, in my opinion, because I see this as exclusively an electoral process that has already begun,’” Zelensky said.
According to him, Budanov and Kyslytsia still went, communicated with the Office of the President of Poland and the Prime Ministerʼs team, the Speakerʼs team, "but returned with the feeling ʼMr. President, we feel that they will do itʼ".
After that, Zelensky says, he tried to initiate a meeting with Nawrocki, but instead he made a new attack against Ukraine.
"I suggested to the President of Poland to meet. I said letʼs hold a conference. The President of Poland is taking the next step: he says that Ukraine has no place in Europe because itʼs bad for the Polish farmer. Heʼs saying this for what purpose — to then put pressure on [Prime Minister Donald] Tusk, to block the cluster. These are related things," Zelensky said.
Zelensky is also confident that his meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk did not influence the Polish president and his decision in any way.
Scandal surrounding the name of the SOF unit
On May 26, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree awarding the Separate Special Operations Center "North" of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) 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 a badge with the Ukrainian flag, and 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.
On June 2, 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.
On June 19, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of Polandʼs highest state award, the Order of the White Eagle. Presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko, and Petro Poroshenko subsequently renounced the order. The head of the Presidentʼs Office Kyrylo Budanov, the Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, and former Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman all renounced their other Polish awards.
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