Polish president on meeting with Zelenskyy: "We were unable to resolve historical issues"

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has reported details of a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ankara, saying that they "were unable to resolve the historical issues".

As reported by Polsat News, Nawrocki said that Poles' emotions regarding the Volyn tragedy are not open to discussion and added that the lack of agreement on the issue is "a specific problem". [The Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.]

"For me, issues concerning the UPA are not open to discussion. We were unable to resolve the historical issues. But we did not expect to resolve every issue," the Polish president stressed. [The UPA, or Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a nationalist paramilitary organisation that fought for Ukrainian independence during and after World War II, primarily against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – ed.]

He added that despite historical disagreements, Poland and Ukraine must "take responsibility for what is happening in connection with the Russian invasion".

"It is good that we met. The president of Ukraine and I discussed what Polish-Ukrainian cooperation should look like," Nawrocki said.

He also added that it is Russia that is a long-term threat to Poland as well as to NATO.

Zelenskyy said that he and Nawrocki had had an "important and necessary conversation" that lasted more than an hour.

The meeting came after a serious deterioration in relations between Kyiv and Warsaw, particularly at the presidential level, following a controversy over the renaming of one of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces units in honour of UPA heroes and Nawrocki's subsequent decision to revoke the Order of the White Eagle previously given to Zelenskyy.

During a meeting in Warsaw with his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski on 3 July, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha proposed a package of confidence-building measures aimed at easing tensions in relations between Ukraine and Poland.