Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not expected to travel to a reconstruction conference in the Polish port city of Gdańsk due to an escalating historical dispute with Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced on Telegram that she would lead the Ukrainian delegation at the conference, which is co-hosted with Poland on Thursday and Friday.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to attend the meeting on Thursday, along with other leaders.
Poland outraged over Kiev's policy on history
Ukraine and Poland are close allies in the face of Russia's war but have fallen out over a dispute about their difficult shared history.
Zelensky named a military unit after the fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during World War II. The UPA murdered tens of thousands of Poles in what is now western Ukraine under German occupation, and the decision to honour them provoked widespread outrage in Warsaw.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of a Polish state decoration. Zelensky and other Ukrainian politicians then returned their Polish honours. Sharp words flew back and forth between Warsaw and Kiev.
The conflict threatens to engulf the strategically important cooperation between the two countries.
The dispute also has a domestic dimension in Poland. The reconstruction conference is an initiative of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centre-left government. The right-wing populist Nawrocki has sought to capitalize on growing Ukraine fatigue among some Polish voters and to challenge Tusk's agenda.
Media call for restraint on both sides
Major media outlets in both countries called for restraint. "Our politicians should demonstrate wisdom and reason, and seek agreement and a way out of the crisis," read one appeal. It was published in Warsaw by outlets such as Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette) and the online news platform Onet, and in Kiev by the online news platform Ukrainska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth). The dispute benefits only the common enemy Russia, the appeal said.
The Ukraine Recovery Conferences (URC), bringing together representatives from politics and business, have been held annually at changing locations since the first year of the war.
Zelensky joined by video link in 2022 in Lugano and in 2023 in London. He travelled in person to the 2024 conference in Berlin and the 2025 conference in Rome.
