Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko have renounced their Order of the White Eagle, following President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s decision to return his award in protest against Karol Nawrocki\u2019s recent actions. <\/p>\n
Leonid Kuchma announced his decision on Saturday, citing the move by Karol Nawrocki to strip Volodymyr Zelensky of the order. Kuchma, who received the honor in 1997, expressed that he could not accept the decision to revoke an award given to the Ukrainian president.<\/p>\n
Viktor Yushchenko also renounced his order, framing his action as a gesture of solidarity with Zelensky. Yushchenko stated that such attempts to undermine previous honors transcend individual politics and affect millions of Ukrainians defending their country.<\/p>\n
Kuchma emphasized his commitment to Polish-Ukrainian relations throughout his presidency, noting his collaborative efforts with Aleksander Kwasniewski to achieve reconciliation based on the principle of mutual forgiveness. He argued that history should not be dictated by other nations.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging the importance of history, Kuchma urged that the pain of past tragedies should not blind both nations to the existential threat posed by imperial forces in the East today.<\/p>\n
Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller commented on the situation, suggesting that if Ukrainian officials are intent on returning state honors, they should also return military aid, including MiGs, tanks, and weapons.<\/p>\n
Miller also remarked that Zelensky could have refused the award initially, citing past recipients like Catherine the Great or Benito Mussolini, rather than accepting it and later complaining about the historical context of the decoration.<\/p>\n
Beyond the former presidents, other high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and various presidential office staff, have also returned their Polish decorations. The conflict began after Karol Nawrocki criticized the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after UPA figures.<\/p>\n
President Andrzej Duda originally awarded the Order of the White Eagle to Zelensky in 2023 for his contributions to Polish-Ukrainian relations and human rights. Despite the current friction, Polish authorities have maintained that support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia remains unchanged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko have renounced their Order of the White Eagle, following President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s decision to return his award in protest against Karol Nawrocki\u2019s recent actions. Diplomatic Protest Against Polish Decision Leonid Kuchma announced his decision on Saturday, citing the move by Karol Nawrocki to strip Volodymyr Zelensky of the order. Kuchma, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-and-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}