Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Saturday that he has returned the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honor, to Polish President Andrzej Duda. The announcement came via his social media, where he even shared a photo of the delivery receipt. This follows Duda’s decision a day earlier to revoke the award, which was originally given to Zelenskyy in 2023.
Zelenskyy’s social media post image
The reason for this abrupt diplomatic turn? Duda stated that Zelenskyy had approved naming a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA), a nationalist organization that fought for Ukraine’s independence but is also accused of massacring around 100,000 Polish civilians during World War II. Zelenskyy fired back on social media, arguing that the medal was awarded in 2023 to honor the Ukrainian people and their army, and that their heroism in defending against Russian aggression deserves unwavering respect.
The controversy quickly escalated. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned Poland’s decision as a “strategic mistake” and announced he would return his own Polish medals. Other top officials, including the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw, Vasyl Bodnar, followed suit, giving back their Polish decorations.
But that’s not all. Zelenskyy also fired a warning shot at Belarus, claiming that Minsk has deployed devices for coordinating firepower near the border to assist Russian attacks on Ukraine. He gave Belarus a one-week ultimatum to remove these devices, threatening to take action itself if they didn’t. Belarusian officials, like Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives’ International Affairs Committee, Oleg Gaidukevich, dismissed the claim as a lie and called the ultimatum “stupid and doomed to fail.”
