Order of the White Eagle stripped from Zelensky to be transferred to the archive of the Polish Presidential Chancellery

The Order of the White Eagle, of which Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Volodymyr Zelensky, has been received by the Polish Presidential Chancellery and will be transferred to archival storage.

This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing a statement by Polish presidential spokesperson Rafał Leskiewicz in an interview with Polsat News.

According to Leskiewicz, the order was already received by mail on the day his statement was published.

“Indeed, the order was returned. Today we received it at the Presidential Chancellery,” Leskiewicz said.

The spokesperson explained the further fate of the decoration: the certificate accompanying the order will be invalidated, and the decoration itself, along with the document, will be transferred to the archive of the Presidential Chancellery. The order will remain in storage as Poland’s highest state decoration.

Leskiewicz also expressed confidence that the situation surrounding the order would not lead to a further deterioration of relations between Warsaw and Kyiv. He referred to a statement by Nawrocki himself, published by the Presidential Chancellery on Friday.

“President Karol Nawrocki stated clearly in his statement published by the Presidential Chancellery on Friday that the stripping of the Order of the White Eagle is not directed against Ukrainians, that Russia is in fact the enemy of Ukraine, of all free Europe and of the free world,” the outlet quotes Leskiewicz as saying.

On June 19, Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle — Poland’s highest and oldest state decoration, awarded for outstanding civil and military service to the state. Warsaw explained the decision by the fact that one of the Ukrainian military units had been named after UPA heroes, which outraged the Polish side given the historical past. Poles oppose the glorification of the UPA and OUN organizations, linking this to the Volhynia tragedy of 1943–1944.

Following Zelensky’s lead, his predecessors also renounced the decoration. Subsequently, the Ukrainian president decided to send the order to Poland by mail, which outraged Nawrocki.