As policymakers discuss Ukraine¡¯s reconstruction in Poland on Thursday, the government in Warsaw is struggling to defuse tensions over history that could hamper collaboration as Kyiv eyes a path to peace and European Union membership.

President Karol Nawrocki¡¯s decision to strip Ukraine¡¯s Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland¡¯s top honor due to a dispute over the naming of an army unit after insurgents who massacred Poles in World War II unleashed the biggest diplomatic crisis between the neighbors since Russia¡¯s 2022 invasion. Zelenskyy opted not to attend Thursday¡¯s Ukraine ?Reconstruction Conference in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, as he sought to insulate the gathering from the row.

Nawrocki¡¯s move also marked a challenge to the pro-European coalition ?government of ?Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which will have to balance its more conciliatory approach to Kyiv with rising negativity about Ukraine among voters.