The Ukrainian delegation at the conference in Gdansk on the reconstruction of Ukraine will be led by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
Svyrydenko wrote about this in a telegram.
The Prime Minister said that the delegation will include representatives of Ukrainian business, heads of state-owned companies, community representatives from across the country, government officials, and parliamentarians.
President Volodymyr Zelensky was expected to attend. However, after the scandal over the renaming of an SOF unit in honor of the UPA heroes and Zelenskyʼs subsequent deprivation of the Polish Order, his participation was in question.
The administration of Polish President Karol Nawrocki had previously reported that he would not attend the conference because he was not invited, writes Polish TVN24. Warsaw also claims that the Ukrainian side refused to hold a separate meeting between Zelensky and Nawrocki.
At the same time, the Presidentʼs Office told Babel that there was no agreed date for the meeting. The day before, Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with TSN that he had suggested that Nawrocki meet and hold a conference, but he stated that "Ukraine has no place in Europe, because it is bad for the Polish farmer".
The Ukraine Recovery Conference is scheduled to take place in Gdansk on June 25-26. Its goal is to strengthen international support for Ukraineʼs reconstruction and attract new investments.
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 alongside 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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