Tusk warns Poland-Ukraine dispute is a strategic mistake
Tusk called the Poland-Ukraine row a strategic mistake as honors were returned and wartime memory reopened a rift on Europe’s eastern flank.
Donald Tusk moved to cool a fast-escalating Poland-Ukraine dispute on Sunday, calling it a “strategic mistake” that would damage both countries in business, geopolitical and reputational terms. His warning came as a fight over World War II memory and national symbolism spilled into state honors, putting two wartime allies on a sharper collision course just as both remain tied to the wider conflict with Russia.
The dispute intensified after Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on June 19 that he would strip Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Poland’s top honor, the Order of the White Eagle. Zelenskiy said on June 20 that he had returned the decoration, and three former Ukrainian presidents, Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko, also renounced the award in protest. Senior Ukrainian officials followed, including Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Kyrylo Budanov and Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar.
The order had been bestowed on April 5, 2023, by then-President Andrzej Duda during a visit to Warsaw, when Poland recognized Zelenskiy for deepening bilateral ties and for his role in security, resilience and human rights. Zelenskiy later said the award had been meant for the Ukrainian people and the army, not only for him, and he sent it back to Nawrocki by post.
At the center of the quarrel was a Ukrainian decree signed on May 26, 2026, that renamed a special forces unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA. Zelenskiy presented the move as a revival of historical traditions, but the UPA remains deeply controversial in Poland because Warsaw links the wartime group to massacres of Poles during World War Two. That memory cut has long haunted Polish-Ukrainian relations, and Tusk, reelected prime minister in 2023 after leading a coalition that defeated the nationalist Law and Justice party, stepped in as the row threatened to harden into a broader political rupture.
Tusk said he was trying, in talks with European partners, to minimize the damage and reduce tensions. Zelenskiy responded that Ukraine and Poland could be only partners and friends, warning that a political struggle could lead to dangerous escalation and stressing that without Ukraine, Poland itself could not be defended. Ukrainian officials and media said the split served Moscow’s interests, because Russia has every reason to see Kyiv and its allies divided.
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