Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
Zelenskyy reveals Ukrainian delegates travelled to Poland to resolve order dispute
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed that, before he sent the Order of the White Eagle by post to the Polish president's chancellery, Ukrainian representatives had attempted to resolve the dispute and explain Kyiv's position.
Ukrainska Pravda
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed that, before he sent the Order of the White Eagle by post to the Polish president's chancellery, Ukrainian representatives had attempted to resolve the dispute and explain Kyiv's position.
Source: Zelenskyy in an interview with TSN. Tyzhden, a Ukrainian TV news show, as reported by European Pravda
Details: Zelenskyy revealed that his team immediately began active negotiations to provide explanations after the Polish president announced his intention to revoke the order, but this did not change Karol Nawrocki's position.
"The head of my office and his first deputy, Budanov and Kyslytsya, said: 'We want to fly over, we'll resolve the issue with the Poles – with Karol's administration.' I told them: 'You won't resolve it, in my view, because I see this purely as an electoral process that has already begun,'" Zelenskyy said.
He added that "the guys went over", spoke with everyone – "both with the president's chancellery and with the prime minister's team, the speaker's team" – and generally "tried to do everything" but returned with the feeling that the Poles would still revoke the order.
"I suggested to the president of Poland that we meet. I said, let's hold a conference. The president of Poland takes the next step – says that Ukraine has no place in Europe because it is bad for Polish farmers. He is saying this in order to then put pressure on Tusk to block the [EU accession negotiating] cluster. These things are connected," Zelenskyy said.
He is convinced that his meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk "had no influence whatsoever on the president of Poland" or his decision.
Zelenskyy added that under the presidency of Andrzej Duda, cooperation between Ukraine and Poland had been very good and that the presidents at that time had "very special relations" against the backdrop of the significant support Poland provided to Ukraine.
"But we live from attack to attack. We don't live 'from one thank you to the next'," the president added, alluding to criticism that Ukraine "is not showing gratitude" to Poland.
Background:
In the same interview, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Karol Nawrocki's actions on "Ukrainian" policy resemble the approach of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who stoked anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and that this "will end badly".
On the evening of 19 June, Nawrocki took the decision to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle in connection with the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He said Poland would not allow EU accession for those who do not understand the need to renounce the "cult of totalitarianism and violence".
Following the decision, a number of current and former Ukrainian officials announced that they would return their Polish honours. Questions were also raised about whether Zelenskyy would attend this year's Ukraine Recovery Conference, scheduled to take place in Gdańsk, Poland.
The Polish president's chancellery explained why the award stripped from Zelenskyy is still held by such figures as former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Russian empress Catherine II (the "Great") and former German chancellor and "friend of the Kremlin" Gerhard Schröder, called the return of the order by post an additional insult, and compared the naming in honour of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to what it would be like if a unit in Germany were named after "SS heroes".
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