European Leaders’ Conference on Postwar Reconstruction of Ukraine Begins Today in Gdańsk, but Without Zelensky

A two-day International Conference on the Postwar Reconstruction of Ukraine begins today in Gdańsk, where the signing of business contracts worth more than one and a half billion euros is expected, but without one of the two main hosts—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Among the approximately 5,000 participants, mostly businesspeople, delegations from 61 countries and 40 international organizations have gathered in Gdańsk, including three presidents, 12 prime ministers, as well as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, representatives of the European Union led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Zelensky canceled his attendance at the conference at the last minute, of which he is a host together with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, due to a „medal war“ after Polish President Karol Nawrocki last week revoked his country’s highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle, from Zelensky because he signed a decree naming a military unit „Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.“

Nawrocki threatened Zelensky that Ukraine would not enter the EU as long as it glorifies that armed faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, whose units in 1943 and 1944 carried out mass ethnic cleansing of the Polish population, as well as Czechs and Jews, and killed, according to historians’ estimates, about 100,000 Poles in villages in the Volhynia region and Galicia in what is now western Ukraine.

The Ukrainian delegation is led by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, which Prime Minister Tusk described as a good move so that a conference important for Ukraine but also for Europe does not remain overshadowed by heated passions over the interpretation of painful chapters of shared Ukrainian-Polish history.

Statesmen and businesspeople expecting the finalization of about 200 contracts for reconstruction work in various sectors in Ukraine will, however, be met by two protests.

One is organized by regional councilors, who are telling both the Polish and Ukrainian authorities that aid to Ukraine must not mean accepting the building of a national identity in Ukraine based on the glorification of Ukrainian nationalists from World War II and their fight against the Soviet Union led by Stepan Bandera and insurgent units that at times collaborated with the Nazis and are responsible for the Volhynia massacre, which Poland designates as genocide.

The second protest is being organized in the evening by far-right extremists from the Confederation of the Polish Crown party, who are protesting the very holding of the conference and the world’s support for Ukraine while it glorifies Stepan Bandera and criminals from the „Ukrainian Insurgent Army.“

„The conference is, nevertheless, being held according to plan. This will be another contribution from both Poland and Europe in helping Ukraine now and in its postwar reconstruction,“ Tusk said ahead of the event.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki was not invited to Gdańsk.