Polish President Karol Nawrocki has not been invited to attend this week's Ukraine Recovery Conference in Poland's seaside city of Gdansk, his aide said on Monday, adding to tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv just days after the two countries clashed over wartime history. The annual conference, co-hosted by Poland and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is one of the highest-profile international gatherings focused on Ukraine's reconstruction. But Marcin Przydacz, head of Nawrocki's international policy office, told reporters: "The president was not invited, so he is not going to an event to which he was not invited by Prime Minister Donald Tusk." He added that no officials from the presidential office would attend because they had also not received invitations. Earlier on Monday, he said Ukraine had withdrawn from a previously agreed meeting between Nawrocki and Zelenskyy in Warsaw, proposing another "distant date" instead. White Eagle Row The diplomatic spat follows Nawrocki's decision on Friday to revoke the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state decoration, from Zelenskyy. That, in turn, followed Zelenskyy's decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a World War Two-era nationalist force that Poland holds responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of Poles. Zelenskyy rejected suggestions the dispute stemmed from Ukraine's actions, saying on Sunday that Nawrocki was motivated by domestic politics. "I see this purely as an electoral process," Zelenskiy told Ukraine's TSN news programme. "It has nothing to do with us – it's an internal matter for them." The Ukrainian leader said Kyiv had sought to ease tensions, including by proposing a bilateral meeting and sending senior officials to Warsaw for talks, but concluded that Nawrocki intended to withdraw the honor regardless. Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz downplayed Nawrocki's absence from the conference, saying it was a practical working event rather than a ceremonial gathering. "Poland is represented by Prime Minister Tusk, who is a co-host. So I don't think there is either a faux pas or a disagreement here," he told reporters in Madrid.
