Polish president decides to strip Ukraine's Zelenskiy of top honour over WW2 dispute

WARSAW, June 19 - Poland's president has decided to strip Volodymyr Zelenskiy of the country's top honour after the Ukrainian president caused outrage by renaming an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), nationalists who massacred Poles in World War Two.

President Karol Nawrocki's decision was likely to unleash a severe diplomatic crisis between the neighbours just days ahead of a conference on Ukraine's reconstruction in the Polish city of Gdansk.

"In light of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “Heroes of the UPA,”... I have decided to revoke the Order of the White Eagle from the President of Ukraine," Nawrocki said in a statement.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Friday that Poland's decision to strip the award was a mistake.

"The decision to strip the president of Ukraine of the Order of the White Eagle is a strategic error by the president of Poland that only benefits Moscow," he wrote on Facebook.

Some Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes for the resistance they mounted against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as symbols of Kyiv's struggle for independence from Moscow.

But the UPA was also involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of killings from 1943 to 1945 in which Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings. REUTERS