Navrotsky’s office announced that Kyiv had refused to have any contact with the Polish President

Marcin Przydacz made this statement in an interview with the Polish television channel TVN24.

Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish President’s Office for International Policy, claims that Kyiv has not shown any willingness to discuss the contentious issue surrounding the use of the name ‘UPA’.

According to him, during the negotiations, the Ukrainian side allegedly dragged out the process and showed no willingness to reconsider its position.

“Unfortunately, there was no willingness whatsoever on the part of Ukraine to change its approach to the issue of the OUN-UPA designation; at the same time, there was a game of playing for time, constant stalling and a continuous changing of decisions,” said Przydacz.

What is being said about contacts between the presidents

The Polish official reported that following his meeting with the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, the parties discussed the possibility of a telephone conversation between the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki.

According to Pszidach, the telephone conversation did not take place because the Ukrainian side allegedly rejected this format.

Following this, he claims, Kyiv proposed holding a face-to-face meeting between the presidents in Warsaw. The Polish side agreed to the date and time of the talks; however, according to Przydacz, the Ukrainian side subsequently proposed postponing the meeting to a later date.

Consequently, Warsaw concluded that Kyiv was allegedly not interested in holding talks at the level of heads of state.

Why the dispute arose

The statements were made following Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to strip Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest state honour.

The Polish authorities linked this decision to the scandal surrounding the awarding of the honorary title ‘in the name of the Heroes of the UPA’ to one of the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Forces.

Navrotsky later stated that, in his view, the Ukrainian authorities’ actions in this matter had exceeded Polish society’s ‘pain threshold’.

The Ukrainian side’s position

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously stated that the decision to strip him of the Order of the White Eagle could have negative consequences for Ukrainian-Polish relations.

At the time of publication, there had been no public reaction from Kyiv to Marcin Przydacz’s latest statements.

Following the Polish president’s decision, a number of Ukrainian politicians and public figures announced that they were renouncing their Polish honours.

Such intentions were announced, in particular, by Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga, Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Budanov, as well as former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko.

Further debate in Poland has centred on the question of why a number of historical figures – including the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the Russian Empress Catherine II and the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder – have not yet been stripped of their orders.

Statements from the Polish side indicate that diplomatic tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw continue over historical memory and the assessment of the UPA’s activities.

At the same time, there has so far been no official confirmation from the Ukrainian authorities of the claims made by Przydacz.

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