Zelensky set to skip Ukraine Recovery Conference in Poland amid diplomatic dispute

Jun 23, 2026 | Featured, History, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has cancelled plans to attend this week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Poland amid the fallout from a diplomatic dispute that last week resulted in Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripping Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour.

The news was effectively confirmed by Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, who announced on Tuesday afternoon that she would lead Ukraine’s delegation at the conference. She did not, however, mention Zelensky directly; nor has any official reason for his decision not to attend been announced.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Nawrocki’s office confirmed that the Polish president, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, has himself not been invited to URC, which is being organised by the more liberal Polish government.

“I am leading Ukraine’s delegation and our overall work at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 in Gdańsk,” wrote Svyrydenko on social media, referring to the Polish city where the event is being held.

“Ukraine respects its partners and builds cooperation on the principle of mutual respect,” she added, without making any direct reference to the ongoing diplomatic crisis. “Thank you to everyone who stands with us and helps make this work possible.”

She also expressed hope that the conference, which is dedicated to Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression and reconstruction once the war finishes, would “secure concrete agreements that will strengthen Ukraine’s defence capabilities and resilience while expanding economic cooperation with our partners”.

A Polish deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, later confirmed that Zelensky “is not coming to this conference”, reported the Rzeczpospolita daily.

 

In July last year, Poland was named as the host of URC 2026. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the annual conference has always been held outside Ukraine. Previous hosts include London, Berlin and Rome.

While Zelensky was scheduled to attend the event in Gdańsk, his participation was thrown into doubt by a diplomatic crisis that began at the end of May when the Ukrainian president named a military unit after the “heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)”.

In Ukraine, the UPA is remembered primarily for its role in fighting for Ukrainian independence from Moscow-imposed Soviet rule during and after World War Two.

However, in Poland, it is associated with the Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians, mostly women and children. Poland regards those events as a genocide, though Ukraine strongly rejected that label.

On Friday last week, after efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the situation had failed, Nawrocki followed through on his earlier pledge to strip Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour.

That in turn prompted an angry response from Ukraine, where a number of senior officials, as well as three former presidents, also returned their own Polish honours in solidarity with Zelensky.

Poland’s government has sought to calm emotions. While criticising both Zelensky’s decision to name a unit after the UPA and Nawrocki’s move to strip him of his honour, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Russia is the only beneficiary of disputes between Poland and Ukraine.

Until today, it had remained unclear whether Zelensky would attend URC. Had he done so, there would have been no risk of any awkward interaction with Nawrocki because, as the Polish president’s office confirmed on Monday, he was not invited.

“The president…is not going to an event to which he has not been invited by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Neither are any of his subordinate officials going due to the lack of invitations,” Marcin Przydacz, the head of Nawrocki’s foreign policy office, told the media.

Shortly afterwards, Polish government spokesman Adam Szłapka confirmed to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that Nawrocki was not invited due to the “format of the event” and added that “the presidential palace also showed no interest in participating”.

Ukraine is a co-organiser of the event but Dmytro Lytvyn, President Zelensky’s communications adviser, said that the question of whether Nawrocki was invited is “Poland’s internal matter”.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: President Of Ukraine/flickr (under public domain)

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