Zelensky had a falling out with the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a disagreement with Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski during his visit to Kyiv on Friday.

This was reported in an article for Onet by publicist and former Polish diplomat Witold Jurasz, who managed to speak with participants in the negotiations.

“According to the conversation participants, the atmosphere between Zelensky and Sikorski was extremely tense, it could even be described as a quarrel,” Jurasz stated.

Sources indicate that the Poles were at least surprised by the manner in which Zelensky addressed the Polish Foreign Minister. From the very beginning of the discussion, the Ukrainian president accused Poland of not providing sufficient support for Ukraine’s EU accession bid.

Sikorski responded that it took Poland a decade to join the EU, and the timeline proposed by Zelensky’s office was “unrealistic.” Zelensky then demanded that Warsaw provide more military equipment to Ukraine and intercept missiles and drones over Ukrainian territory. Sikorski replied that this was not possible without a NATO decision.

Zelensky also accused Poland of inflating the issue of the Volyn massacre for domestic political reasons. Sikorski urged for the exhumation of the victims for a proper reburial, but this “did not convince” the Ukrainian president, Jurasz writes.

In recent months, Sikorski has made several notable statements regarding Ukraine. Last week, during a conversation with pranksters, he expressed Poland’s reluctance to defend Ukraine, although he did not rule out the possibility if the front started to collapse. He also criticized Ukrainian authorities for delaying the enactment of a mobilization law and was surprised by the large number of Ukrainian men in Poland.

“I go to a barbershop in Warsaw, and a young Ukrainian barber cuts my hair. And I have a question for him: what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be defending your country?” he questioned.

Additionally, on September 13, Sikorski threatened Kyiv with harsh measures over the Volyn massacre, urging a solution to preserve the memory of this event.

The Volyn massacre refers to events that took place in 1942–1943 in Western Ukraine. Following orders from the local leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), ethnic Poles residing in the present-day Volyn region were killed. Historians estimate the number of Polish victims to be between 50,000 and 100,000. In 2016, the Polish Sejm recognized the Volyn massacre as genocide.