Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not attend the major Ukraine reconstruction conference taking place in Poland this week, as a growing dispute over World War II remembrance threatens to dominate the discussions.
Issued on: 25/06/2026 – 08:15
2 min Reading time
The Ukraine Recovery Conference opens in the Polish port city of Gdańsk on Thursday, gathering officials and business leaders to discuss the country’s post‑war reconstruction.
However, focus has shifted to a diplomatic dispute between the two close allies after Zelensky named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist organisation implicated in the World War II massacres of Poles.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko will head the delegation in Zelensky’s place, Kyiv announced on Tuesday.
The move was intended to prevent “excessive politicisation” and “scandals,” said foreign‑ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy.
“We remain in constant contact through diplomatic channels,” he said regarding relations with Poland.
Honours sent back
The dispute escalated after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest civilian honour.
Zelensky returned the award over the weekend, and former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko likewise returned theirs, joined by several senior Ukrainian officials.
The UPA fought both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in its quest for a Ukrainian state, yet it also killed thousands of Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945 in Volhynia—a region that belonged to Poland before World II and now lies within Ukraine.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s chief allies since Russia’s full‑scale invasion in 2022, welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees and acting as a logistics hub for Western support to Kyiv.
The recovery conference, previously staged in Rome, Berlin and Lugano, Switzerland, was intended to underscore Poland’s role as Ukraine’s neighbour and ally.
A ‘political’ move
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has attempted to ease tensions, yet he also placed the blame for the diplomatic crisis on Kyiv and urged Zelensky to reverse the naming decision.
“I am also counting on the fact that more people on both the Polish and Ukrainian sides will be able to rise above these moods and emotions and guide Poland and Ukraine toward the future,” Tusk said.
Anger has risen in Ukraine over Poland’s demands.
“We are defending Poland, we are defending Europe right now—not the other way around. Our fighters are defending it, and Ukrainians are dying,” Zelensky told Ukrainian media on Sunday.
Zelensky said the naming decision came at the request of soldiers, noting that he had signed similar decrees hundreds of times during the war.
“I have never told them what I like or dislike,” he said.
Zelensky said Polish politicians were seeking domestic support ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
“You radicalise society, and where will this social hatred lead? To ratings. This is a political struggle that could end badly,” he added.
Poland hosts more than 1.5 million Ukrainians, including refugees who arrived after 2022 and economic migrants. In recent weeks, a series of anti‑Ukrainian incidents have occurred across the country.
(with newswires)
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