Polish president Carol Navrotsky announced on Friday that he decided to remove from Ukrainian president Volontimir Zelenski the highest distinction of the country he had been awarded, the Order of the White Eagle, with the background of tensions in the relationship of the two countries on the occasion of their common history.
The Ukrainian president caused outrage in Warsaw after renamed Ukrainian military unit, giving it the name of a nationalist Ukrainian organization, UPA, which is associated with Polish massacres during World War II.
Navrotsky's decision, an act considered to be of high symbolism, can harm bilateral relations. Poland strongly supported Ukraine, at military and humanitarian level, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, in February 2022.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sibiha reacted immediately saying that the removal of discrimination by Zelenski constitutes a "strategic mistake" on the part of Warsaw and spoke of a decision showing "defiance" in Kiev.