A diplomatic storm has erupted between Warsaw and Kyiv after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bestowed the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” on a special operations unit, resurrecting deeply painful historical grievances. The decree, signed on 26 May, renamed the “North” centre of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a nationalist guerrilla force from the 1940s that Poland accuses of genocidal massacres of Polish civilians. In an unusually sharp rebuke, Polish President Karol Nawrocki threatened to revoke the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest decoration, which he had previously awarded to Zelenskyy. “This is not how relations between nations are built,” Nawrocki declared, calling the move an unwitting gift to Russian propaganda.

Viewed from Warsaw, the wound is raw and historical memory non-negotiable. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought both Soviet and German forces but also collaborated with the Nazi regime at certain stages, is held responsible by Polish historians for the deaths of around 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945. Poland formally designates these events as genocide. In Ukraine, however, the UPA is widely revered by nationalists as a symbol of resistance against Moscow’s domination, a narrative that has only strengthened since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Zelenskyy justified the naming as part of a broader effort to restore historical military traditions, a gesture that Kyiv sees as reinforcing national resolve but which Warsaw interprets as a deliberate provocation.

The reaction from Poland’s political establishment was immediate and bipartisan, though carefully calibrated. President Nawrocki, a conservative, led the charge with his threat to withdraw the White Eagle, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political rival generally more supportive of Ukraine, labelled the decision “wounding” but adopted a more restrained tone. This dual response reflects the delicate tightrope Warsaw walks: it remains among Ukraine’s staunchest allies in its war against Russia, yet cannot ignore a domestic constituency for whom the Volhynia massacres are a live political issue. Analysts in London note that the episode exposes the persistent fault line beneath the strategic partnership, one that Moscow has long sought to exploit.

The timing could hardly be more delicate for Kyiv. With Western military aid facing political headwinds and Russia making incremental gains in the east, Ukraine can ill afford a rift with its most crucial logistical hub. Moscow’s propaganda machinery has already seized on the controversy, a reaction Nawrocki himself anticipated, stating that glorifying the UPA “gave Russian propaganda many reasons and opportunities for disinformation.” As both capitals scramble to contain the damage, the incident serves as a stark reminder that the war is not only fought on the battlefield but also in the contested terrain of memory, where the ghosts of the 20th century can still sway 21st-century alliances.