Poland’s Tusk says Ukraine wants to lower tension, should confront history
Written by: Marek Strzelecki and Barbara Erling
WARSAW, July 3 (Reuters) – Ukraine is looking for ways to ease tensions with Warsaw, Poland’s prime minister said on Friday, adding that Poland’s eastern neighbor must come to terms with its European Union accession date.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have plunged into their worst crisis since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 after Polish President Karol Nawrocki deprived Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Poland’s great honour.
Nawrocki said he took this step because an army unit was named after rebels who massacred Poles in World War II.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nawrocki’s political opponent, is trying to ease tensions and said he received positive signals from the meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw on Friday.
Tusk said at a press conference: “I do not know the results of the meeting, but I have signals that the Ukrainian side is looking for ways to reduce tension.” he said.
ENTERING WITH HISTORY
At a separate press conference, Sikorski refused to address details of the meeting, saying only that “diplomacy prefers silence.”
Sybiha said in a post on
However, he did not indicate that Kiev would change the name of the military unit in question. “We respect the history of others and expect the same approach to our own history and independence from our partners,” he said.
Some Ukrainians see the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) as a hero for its resistance against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and a symbol of Kiev’s struggle for independence from Moscow.
However, the UPA was also involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of murders from 1943 to 1945; Poland said nearly 100,000 Poles had been killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
TUSK IS ‘CAUTIFUL’ ABOUT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
Tusk said Kiev must face history to realize its goal of joining the European Union, and diplomats expect it to be a complex and long process.
“There is no European community without reconciliation, and there is no reconciliation without coming to terms with a painful history.”
Tusk also said he would ask the Polish delegation to be “cautious” about promising more financial aid to Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit.
“It’s not that I don’t believe Ukraine needs financial support, but I believe Poland has very important obligations to protect the eastern border of the European Union.”
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki, Barbara Erling, Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Yuliia Dysa in Kiev, writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
