Polish President strips Ukraine's Zelenskyy of highest civilian honour | Bohdan Nahaylo

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to World Talks, coming to you live from Warsaw. I'm Salla Szczemska.

[00:00:04]Much is happening on the Ukraine front, both militarily and politically. A series of high-level meetings this week, from the G7 summit to the European Council, has resulted in fresh commitments of support for Kyiv and the opening of EU accession negotiations. At the same time, relations between Poland and Ukraine remain strained after Polish President Komorowski decided to strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland's highest state honor, the Order of the White Eagle. To discuss these latest developments, I'm joined by Bohdan Nahaylo, editor-in-chief of Kyiv Post.

[00:00:38]Hello and welcome, sir. Delighted to have you with us.

[00:00:41]So, Polish President Komorowski has decided to strip Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state decoration. This follows a diplomatic dispute over the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the Ukrainian insurgent army. Now, we hadn't anticipated some sort of fallout, but there appeared to be a window of opportunity for President Zelenskyy to reverse or amend the decision and potentially avoid the de-escalation. So, why do you think he chose not to?

[00:01:16]>> Well, he made it very clear that he felt that it wasn't Poland's business to tell him who who to award what titles to give to military units, as was made clear again in his latest statement and Budanov's statement that how Ukraine treats history is its business and not someone else's.

[00:01:40]Ukraine doesn't tell Poland how to write its history, say of the interwar period, where the Ukrainians saw themselves very much as victims, victims of a state that hadn't complied with international obligations that it that it undertook at the Treaty of Versailles.

[00:01:58]So, um you know, it's pretty pointless for politicians to escalate these issues which should be left to historians.

[00:02:08]Nobody in Ukraine is denying that there were horrible tragedies, massacres in Volyn.

[00:02:17]There was a lot more to Ukraine and Polish history than that one year. What led up to those massacres? What led up to the hatred that was there? What led up to the fact that the majority of the five or six million Ukrainians in Poland in 1939 were not supporting the existence of Poland. And these are the questions that historians need to look at, not the final result, the culmination in the bloodbath that followed.

[00:02:46]>> Now, in the latest development, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Zelenskyy's office, refused Polish Order of Merit. He was awarded Gold Officer's Cross in 2025.

[00:02:57]Andriy Sybiha, Ukraine's Foreign Minister, also spoke in harsh words about this, and we have a sound bite here, so let's take a look.

[00:03:09]He also refused his distinction that he received. So, are we seeing the beginning of a spiral here? And what can be done to avoid further escalation?

[00:03:24]>> Well, I think what's needed is is a cool heads and wisdom, political wisdom, not to exacerbate matters more. I think both sides should just swallow what has happened regrettably and move on. I mean, what's important is that both Ukraine and Poland face a common enemy, Russia, and it's in their common interest to focus on the present and the future rather than keep looking back and uh shall we say torpedoing if you want the very important progress that has been made in Polish-Ukrainian relations being improved. Look, there's been a lot of progress made over the last 20 years by historians in coming to some sort of common understanding of the reasons for what happened in '43. But that's very positive. But Poland also would need to eventually say look, you know, our treatment of the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews in the 1920s and '30s was not exactly what Ukrainians wanted. And you know, they they should also remember that not only did they not fulfill the as I've said the obligations that they undertook as a condition of being recognized as an independent state in 1918-1919 before the allies. I mean, Poland signed a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany in 1934 just after the Holodomor which had killed millions in Ukraine.

[00:05:01]How were Ukrainians supposed to react to that? And that continued until early 1939 after months after Poland had helped Nazi Germany dismember Czechoslovakia.

[00:05:15]So there's a lot of these skeletons in the cupboard that there's no point in in returning to them. We should focus on the present and of course there's a lot of anger in Ukraine and the only side that gains from all this is Moscow.

[00:05:31]And [clears throat] it's tragic that it's come to this, but I hope that this is a temporary phenomena that tempers will subside and we'll get back to more normal dialogue between the two uh, leaderships of the countries.

[00:05:47]>> Uh, >> but do you honestly believe that Zelensky did not foresee this possible backlash?

[00:05:56]>> Look, you're focusing on the UPA. The UPA, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is not known in Ukraine for the massacres in Volhynia. I think most Ukrainians weren't even aware of these massacres until fairly recently. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army is seen as a symbol of resistance uh, against the Soviets into the '50s. It's something like your AK, for instance. Nobody in Ukraine is saying, you know, don't talk of in Poland about the AK's uh, being sort of enemies of somebody. For you, they're heroes. Uh, for for Ukraine, UPA are certainly uh, heroes for the most part.

[00:06:34]And the blemishes on their uh, early record, 1943, they they were only created spontaneously, not as a regular army, in late '42, to fight German um, population uh, displacement, moving out uh, hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians for forced labor to Germany.

[00:06:54]And and then it was used to sort of push back Polish attempts to uh, retain areas that it had colonized since the late uh, '20s. That's how Ukrainians see it. So, you know, there are two sides. It can't be just black and white. We understand that the uh, the UPA is is certainly not seen as as a positive force in Poland, but there should be some compassion and understanding of the situation in which Ukrainians found themselves. Germans, Poles, uh, Soviets, etc. >> Of course, we'll keep following this uh, story as it develops. Now, in other developments, Belarus, a close Russian ally, has allowed Moscow to use its territory uh, throughout the war, but has not formally joined the fighting. On Friday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky issued an ultimatum warning Minsk to remove military equipment from near the border within a week or face Ukrainian action. He accused Belarus of hosting military systems that help target Ukrainian forces.

[00:07:56]How do you see this developing? Do you think Lukashenko will back down?

[00:08:02]>> Look, I think that Zelensky clearly senses that there is some weakness on Lukashenko's part. His so-called apology to Zelensky a few days ago didn't come out of the thin air. It either reflects that his patron in Moscow is having a hard time for some reason, internal squabbles, you know, the problems with the way the war's going.

[00:08:30]We don't know the reasons behind it, but I think that Zelensky clearly felt that this was the time to say, "Look, we want actions, not just words." We know that Lukashenko's a sly fox. He plays up to to the west, to America most recently, while being a lackey, a servile servant now of Putin because his retention of power has has depended on Moscow's backing. So, I think what Zelensky has done is not just impulsively. I'm sure he's discussed this with others is to push Lukashenko further to the limit and see how far he'll go in living up to his most recent posturing before the West and before Ukraine. So, there's an element of bluff in it, I think. I'm not I don't see any signs here of preparation of the public for Ukraine attacking Belarus, but they are certainly reminding Belarus very publicly that look, you're a staging area. You're a de facto ally of Russia in its barbaric invasion of Ukraine and and this cannot go on. You cannot sort of apologize and and say, well, you know, I'm not as bad as you think. Um, put put your money where your mouth is.

[00:09:50]>> Now, Ukraine's drone campaign has brought the war closer to Moscow recently with fires breaking out at a major oil refinery. So, as Ukraine's long-range drone campaign becomes increasingly effective and concern among Russians uh grows, what options does uh Vladimir Putin have? How is he likely to respond?

[00:10:13]>> Well, we've seen uh Lavrov's response that we will be hitting Ukraine even harder. Uh and Zelenskyy's response, look, if Kyiv burns, then Moscow will burn. So, there is this uh shall we say uh heightening of uh the uh verbal exchanges and threats, but uh Ukraine is uh systematically destroying the energy hubs uh not simply deep within Russia, but now uh clearly uh much closer to the main uh capitals of of Russia, um Moscow, St. Petersburg, uh in and uh bringing the message home that this is what we faced for 4 and 1/2 years. Uh have some of your own treatment and uh realize that uh there there's no easy uh way out of this that you know, Ukrainians will suddenly capitulate. And I think the Ukrainians are heartened by uh one or two other factors apart from the success of this strategy um and the fact that they virtually uh cut off Crimea um certainly by road and are hitting um major targets in Crimea and holding their own on the front lines. I think uh you know, Ukrainians are obviously aware that after uh Trump fiasco uh in Iran, uh there has been a softening a warming uh to Ukraine, which may be just you know verbal and may be just for show, but there is hope that the Americans or rather Washington will be changing its approach and will be more supportive of Ukraine. So all those factors I think need to be taken into account.

[00:11:51]>> Now on the diplomatic front, Ukraine has opened the first cluster of negotiations on joining the European Union. A milestone made possible after Hungary's new government abandoned Victor Orban's long-running veto. However, Prime Minister Peter Magyar reportedly removed language referring to fast-track accession. So how would you assess the state of Ukrainian-Hungarian relations at the moment? Does this mark a genuine reset or are we seeing some underlying tensions?

[00:12:23]>> It's been a long and painful process.

[00:12:25]Progress [clears throat] has been made in the sense that the first cluster has been opened and agreed to.

[00:12:31]And I I think it was a little bit shall we say unrealistic for Zelenskyy to expect such a major blow you know breakthrough that all the other clusters would be opened.

[00:12:44]I think that Magyar's positioning again with shades of Orban's approach has disappointed certainly Ukrainians and perhaps its stronger supporters within Europe, but it's a question of step by step. You know the game is not over. We don't know at what stage it is. Are we halfway into it? Are we 1/3 of the way or are we 3/4 of the way into it? There are many factors. So I'm not totally disappointed. I think that an element of realism has prevailed hard bargaining negotiating will continue behind the scenes.

[00:13:20]>> Bohdan Nahaylo, editor-in-chief Kyiv Post, thank you so very much for joining us this morning. Much appreciated.

[00:13:27]>> Thank you.

[00:13:28]>> And thank you for watching World Talks.

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