Vladimir Putin with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko (AFP/File)
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UPDATE 0612 GMT:
Polish President Karol Nawrocki has stripped Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle.
Nawrocki acted over Zelensky’s decision to name a serving Ukrainian military unit after the World War-II era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
The UPA fought for Ukraine’s independence. However, it is remembered in Poland for its role in the killing of tens of thousands of Polish civilians in the Nazi-occupied Volyn region, now part of western Ukraine.
Nawrocki said in a video address:
We must not betray the sacrifices of our ancestors with silence. These are graves that must not be forgotten.
Poland has repeatedly signaled to the Ukrainian side the particular importance of this issue. We have conveyed our position and our expectation that the consequences of this decision for relations between our countries be reconsidered.
Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Nawrocki’s decision is a “strategic mistake… from which only Moscow benefits.”
We regret that emotions have prevailed in Warsaw and have pushed Polish politicians to take unjustified, impulsive, and disrespectful steps not only toward President Zelensky, but primarily toward the Ukrainian state.
The Foreign Minister said he is refusing the Commander’s Cross Order of Merit award, conferred on him in 2022 by then-Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that the episode “pleases Putin and shocks our allies,” calling on Nawrocki and Zelensky to “tone down emotions [and] not to fuel tensions”.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Belarus that it should halt support of Russia’s drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
At a joint press conference with the visiting Honduran President Nasry Asfura in Kyiv, Zelensky said Russia was using relay stations on Belarusian towers. He addressed Belarus leader Aleksandr Lukashenko:
Russia will continue to push him [Lukashenko] into this war. Now he understands that Ukraine will respond.
Today he has repeaters on his towers. On his territory, along two regions bordering Ukraine, there is equipment that adjusts fire on the Ukrainian population.
They are killing civilians there.
Zelensky noted that Russia has used Belarusian territory from the earliest days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Although Lukashenko had held back from direct involvement of the Belarus military, missiles launched from Belarus struck targets inside Ukraine. Minsk has also allowed the positioning of Russian nuclear forces.
“When Lukashenko says he does not want to be involved in the war, he should be honest, at least with his own people,” Zelensky said. “It is not only he who could be drawn into the war — his entire country could be dragged into it by Russia.”
Zelensky said a week was sufficient for Lukashenko to turn off the relays. “If he doesn’t do it, we will,” the President assured.
He added:
We are doing everything so that the Russians don’t have the ability to sell oil and supply diesel and fuel to their army. Today, Belarus is one of the key suppliers for the Russian army.
Can this be stopped? I’m sure it’s within [Lukashenko’s] power. And he is the one who controls it.
