European and Polish Officials Criticize Zelensky Over Tribute to Nazi Collaborators European leaders who spent two years hailing Volodymyr Zelensky as the face of European values are now asking whether those values have a Nazi problem.

Zelensky’s decision to grant an elite Ukrainian unit the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” – referencing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, implicated in the wartime massacre of up to 100,000 Polish civilians – has detonated a political backlash in Brussels and Warsaw.

Brussels: From icon to liability

Dozens of MEPs are pressing to strip Zelensky of the European Order of Merit, the EU’s newly minted top honor he received just weeks ago for his “exceptional contribution to European integration and European values.” Their argument is blunt: “European values cannot be reconciled with the glorification of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” wrote Polish MEP Anna Brylka, insisting Zelensky “doesn’t deserve” the award.

The appeal, signed by nearly 40 MEPs, warns that turning wartime nationalist leaders into state heroes risks a “cult” that will poison “good neighborly relations” and teach “young Ukrainians… to revere criminals… as heroes.”

Warsaw: Ally turned problem partner

In Poland – one of Ukraine’s most important wartime backers – the reaction is even harsher. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, long a champion of Kyiv, says support may pivot from empathy to “hard business interests” if Kiev does not change course. All responsibility, he adds, lies with Ukraine to “heal this completely unnecessary conflict over historical interpretations.”

Karol Nawrocki, head of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, has urged stripping Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, arguing that a nation honoring “bandits and murderers” is not ready for the “European family.”

The clash: Memory vs. realpolitik

Kyiv’s long-running state policy of rehabilitating UPA and OUN figures has finally collided with the red lines of its most ardent European supporters. For now, Ukraine’s battlefield hero is becoming Europe’s most awkward moral test.