Relations between Warsaw and Kyiv continue to deteriorate, with no bilateral meeting planned between Polish President Karol Nawrocki and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit.
Both leaders travelled to Ankara for the summit on July 7–8. Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau at the Polish Presidential Chancellery, confirmed that no formal Nawrocki-Zelenskyy meeting had been scheduled. NATO’s official programme identifies Ankara, rather than Istanbul, as the summit’s host city.
“There is no directly scheduled meeting,” Przydacz said. He noted, however, that Zelenskyy was expected to attend a dinner for summit guests, despite Ukraine not being a NATO member.
Przydacz said the Polish side could not rule out an informal interaction between the two presidents. He added that Nawrocki was not seeking talks merely for the sake of holding a meeting and argued that any discussion should produce tangible results.
According to the official, improving bilateral relations would require Kyiv to stop honouring figures whom Polandregards as collaborators with Nazi Germany and members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
The dispute intensified in June after Nawrocki revoked Zelenskyy’s Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state decoration, over the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the UPA.
Many observers in both countries believe relations could deteriorate further. On July 11, Poland will commemorate the anniversary of the Volhynia massacres, a subject that remains central to historical disputes between Warsaw and Kyiv.
The anniversary is likely to bring renewed pressure from Poland’s conservative and nationalist politicians for Ukraine to reconsider its commemoration of figures associated with the OUN and UPA.
