Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will skip this week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, Poland, as a diplomatic dispute between Kyiv and Warsaw threatens to overshadow one of the main annual gatherings devoted to Ukraine’s reconstruction and long-term economic recovery.
The Ukrainian delegation will instead be led by Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, who said on Tuesday that Ukraine would use the two-day conference to pursue practical agreements with international partners. Her announcement effectively confirmed that Zelenskiy, who had been expected to attend the forum co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland, would not travel to the Polish Baltic port city for the June 25-26 event.
The decision marks a downgrade in Ukraine’s political representation at a conference intended to bring together allied governments, international financial institutions, businesses, local authorities and civil society around the future rebuilding of Ukraine. The forum’s agenda is focused on recovery, resilience and investment, but the political atmosphere has been shaped by a row over wartime history, national memory and the symbolic language used by Ukraine’s armed forces.
Svyrydenko said Ukraine’s delegation would include representatives of Ukrainian businesses, heads of state-owned companies, community leaders, government officials and lawmakers. She said the mission was to secure concrete agreements that strengthen Ukraine’s defence capability and resilience while expanding economic cooperation with partner countries. Kyiv also expects a number of agreements to be signed during the event, including in the energy sector, which has been repeatedly targeted by Russian airstrikes.
The Ukraine Recovery Conference is the principal annual international forum dedicated to mobilising support for Ukraine’s reconstruction. The 2026 edition is being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine in Gdańsk and is expected to emphasise business investment, human recovery, local and regional rebuilding, Ukraine’s European integration, and security and defence. Organisers say the conference is designed to catalyse investment for Ukrainian businesses and focus on sectors most affected by Russia’s war, including energy, critical infrastructure and logistics.
Zelenskiy’s absence comes after weeks of tension over his decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA. The formation is seen by many Ukrainians as part of the struggle for national independence against Soviet domination. In Poland, however, it is associated with the killing of Polish civilians in Volhynia and eastern Galicia during the Second World War, one of the most painful unresolved historical issues between the two countries.
The dispute escalated after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelenskiy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour. The award had been conferred on the Ukrainian president in 2023, when Poland was among Kyiv’s most prominent supporters following Russia’s full-scale invasion. Nawrocki’s decision triggered a strong reaction from Ukraine, where Zelenskiy and several senior Ukrainian officials returned Polish honours in protest.
The diplomatic rupture has put Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a difficult position as host of the recovery conference in his home city. Tusk has criticised actions that inflame tensions while arguing that Poland’s strategic security interests require continued support for Ukraine. He has urged both sides to avoid a spiral that could weaken cooperation at a time when Russia remains the central military threat to Ukraine and a major security concern for Poland and the wider region.
Asked about Zelenskiy’s planned absence, Tusk said he was not disappointed and suggested that the conference might proceed more efficiently without additional tension. He described the decision as a gesture that could help de-escalate the situation. Polish government officials have also stressed that the conference will go ahead and that Ukrainian participation remains essential because the event concerns Ukraine’s reconstruction, security and economic recovery.
The Polish president’s office has said Nawrocki was not invited to the event, which is being organised under a government-led format. That has added another layer to the political backdrop in Warsaw, where the pro-European government and the conservative presidency are already divided on several domestic and foreign-policy issues. Ukraine has treated the question of Nawrocki’s invitation as a Polish internal matter, while seeking to keep its own representation focused on the recovery agenda.
For Kyiv, the immediate objective is to prevent the dispute from weakening international commitments on financing, infrastructure and resilience. Ukraine’s economy remains under severe wartime pressure, with reconstruction needs extending across housing, transport, energy, industrial facilities, public services, schools, hospitals and local government capacity. Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid and industrial base have increased the urgency of securing investment in distributed generation, grid protection, repair capacity and emergency resilience before future winter periods.
The Gdańsk conference is also expected to address private-sector investment under wartime risk. Ukraine and its partners have been working to expand the use of guarantees, blended finance, war-risk insurance and public-private partnerships to make projects bankable despite ongoing hostilities. International financial institutions and donor governments have identified investment mobilisation as a necessary complement to budget support and humanitarian aid, especially as Ukraine seeks to move from emergency repair toward a more durable model of recovery and integration with European markets.
Poland’s role is particularly important because of geography and logistics. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Poland has served as a major hub for military assistance, humanitarian flows, refugee support and trade routes linking Ukraine with the European Union. Polish ports, rail corridors and road networks have helped sustain Ukraine’s access to European markets and allied supplies. At the same time, bilateral relations have periodically been strained by disputes over agricultural imports, transport competition and historical memory.
The present dispute is especially sensitive because it touches a core issue in Polish historical consciousness. Poland’s parliament has classified the Volhynia massacres as genocide, while Ukraine has resisted that framing and tends to place the UPA within a broader narrative of anti-Soviet national resistance. The two interpretations have long complicated efforts at commemoration, exhumation and reconciliation. Although Kyiv and Warsaw had taken steps toward cooperation on remembrance issues, the military unit naming revived a controversy that both governments had sought to manage carefully.
Ukrainian officials have argued that the naming decision should be understood in the context of soldiers’ wartime identity and resistance to Moscow. Zelenskiy has said Ukrainian service members choose heroic names for their units and that he must support them as commander-in-chief. Polish critics argue that honouring the UPA without sufficient regard for Polish civilian victims undermines trust and damages support for Ukraine among Polish voters. The exchange has fed into a broader debate about how both countries can sustain wartime solidarity while confronting unresolved historical grievances.
The diplomatic row carries practical risks beyond symbolism. Ukraine depends heavily on Polish logistics and political advocacy, while Poland sees Ukraine’s defence as closely connected to its own security. Any deterioration in relations could complicate coordination on transport, border operations, energy infrastructure, defence-industrial cooperation and EU-level policy. Tusk has warned that Russia would be the primary beneficiary of a prolonged dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv, a message echoed by officials and analysts who argue that the countries’ strategic interests still strongly overlap.
The Ukraine Recovery Conference is intended to demonstrate that overlap. The official programme framework includes a new security and defence dimension proposed by Poland, reflecting the view that reconstruction cannot be separated from Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. Topics include air defence, unmanned technologies, military mobility, infrastructure protection, humanitarian demining, shelters, dual-use technologies, countering disinformation and defence-industrial partnerships. The agenda also includes energy resilience, transport connectivity, public investment management, local recovery and Ukraine’s EU-aligned reforms.
By sending Svyrydenko, Kyiv is placing the conference in the hands of a government leader whose portfolio is closely tied to economic management, investment and reform implementation. Her message emphasised constructive partnership, mutual respect and concrete outcomes rather than the historical dispute. That framing suggests Ukraine wants to avoid a public confrontation in Gdańsk while still maintaining high-level representation capable of negotiating agreements with governments, companies and financial institutions.
For Poland, the conference is also an opportunity to reinforce its role as a gateway to Ukraine’s reconstruction. Polish businesses are seeking access to future rebuilding contracts, especially in construction, logistics, energy, engineering, manufacturing and security-related sectors. Warsaw has an interest in ensuring that its companies are positioned for Ukraine’s recovery while also demonstrating that Poland remains a central European supporter of Kyiv despite domestic political tension and public fatigue over the war’s economic spillovers.
The absence of Zelenskiy will nevertheless be noticed by delegations arriving in Gdańsk. Ukrainian presidential appearances at major international forums have often served as a focal point for pledges, political messaging and coalition management. His decision not to attend removes the most prominent symbol of Ukrainian wartime diplomacy from a conference designed to showcase international commitment. It also signals that the dispute has reached a level at which both sides judged a lower-profile Ukrainian presence preferable to a potentially divisive presidential visit.
The conference will therefore proceed with two parallel objectives. One is the formal recovery agenda: financing, energy, infrastructure, defence capacity, business mobilisation and Ukraine’s European integration. The other is the informal diplomatic task of preventing a historical dispute from eroding a partnership that remains central to European security. The outcome in Gdańsk will be measured not only by agreements signed, but also by whether Ukraine and Poland can contain the political fallout while maintaining practical cooperation under wartime conditions.
Kyiv’s allies are likely to watch closely for signs that the row affects commitments or coordination. The recovery process requires long-term confidence from governments, lenders and private investors, and political disputes between key partners can complicate that effort. At the same time, the decision to keep a large Ukrainian delegation in place, led by the prime minister, indicates that neither Kyiv nor Warsaw is seeking to cancel or downgrade the substantive agenda of the conference itself.
The Gdańsk forum comes as Ukraine continues to press partners for air defence, energy support, budget financing and investment instruments capable of operating under continuing Russian attack. Reconstruction is no longer treated only as a postwar issue; it has become part of Ukraine’s wartime resilience strategy. That makes the conference politically important even without Zelenskiy in attendance. The immediate test is whether the participants can convert the event into tangible agreements while keeping the Poland-Ukraine dispute from becoming the dominant story.
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