Tusk calls on Zelensky and Nawrocki to have a ‘direct and sincere conversation’

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk publicly addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, calling on them to hold direct talks amid an escalating Polish-Ukrainian dispute over the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after heroes of the UPA.

“Since diplomacy has yielded no results, I am publicly calling on Presidents Karol Nawrocki and Volodymyr Zelensky to have a direct and sincere conversation. Before emotions destroy the solidarity that was born in the face of the Russian threat. Cooperation serves the interests of both our states and our peoples, while conflict serves the interests of Moscow. This is, perhaps, obvious to all of us,” Tusk wrote on social network X on Monday.

The diplomatic flare-up was triggered by President Zelensky’s decision to award the separate North Special Operations Center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Forces the honorary name “named after the Heroes of the UPA.” The decision provoked a sharp reaction in Poland.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki stated that by naming the Ukrainian unit after the heroes of the UPA, Zelensky had “provided Russian propaganda with its best material.” Nawrocki also proposed stripping the Ukrainian president of the Order of the White Eagle.

At the diplomatic level, the Polish side took a number of steps. Polish Foreign Ministry Secretary of State Marcin Bosacki, during a meeting with Ukraine’s Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar on May 28, expressed “deep dissatisfaction” with the decision to assign the honorary name to the unit. The following day, May 29, this position was conveyed to the Ukrainian side by Poland’s chargé d’affaires in Kyiv, Piotr Łukasiewicz, during a conversation with Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleksandr Mishchenko.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, stated that Ukrainian soldiers, in initiating the naming of the unit after the “Heroes of the UPA,” had no intention of insulting the Polish people, and stressed that only Moscow would benefit from Ukrainian-Polish disputes.

On June 6, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, following a meeting with the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov, spoke of the two countries’ security partnership, but added that on matters of historical legacy “there are lines that cannot be crossed.”