A truce is nigh. That, in a nutshell, captured the mood behind the pitch of the consultants, financiers, contractors, and political expediters who flocked to Gdańsk for the 2026 Ukraine Recovery Conference in June.
The war is not over, but many behaved as if the next phase had already begun. Reconstruction is being priced, influence is being positioned, and Ukraine’s future is becoming less about solidarity and more about access.
Few countries are better placed to capitalize than Poland. Four years of serving as Ukraine’s principal logistical gateway, absorbing millions of refugees, and facilitating much of the West’s support effort should have translated into a privileged position in shaping what comes next. Yet the conference exposed a harsher reality: Warsaw has helped Ukraine survive, but appears far less capable of shaping its future.
Officially, URC was a success. Some 7,500 participants attended while over 160 agreements worth over €10bn ($11bn) were announced, international financial institutions unveiled fresh funding, and Ukraine increasingly presented itself not as a recipient of aid but as an exporter of military innovation. Drones, battlefield software, autonomous systems, and defense manufacturing occupied as much attention as reconstruction itself.
For Poland, however, the conference became an uncomfortable reminder that geopolitical relevance alone does not produce strategic influence.
This was the tragicomedy of URC 2026. Poland had the opportunity to convert four years of wartime political capital into lasting influence. Instead, institutional churn and competing centers of authority exposed a striking mismatch between Poland’s geopolitical position and its capacity to act strategically.
Polish firms were present, but too often without the state support that increasingly accompanies their German, French, or Nordic competitors in Ukraine. The contrast with Kyiv was instructive. Deputy Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko arrived with a clear mandate and a coordinated team. Poland was so consumed by domestic rivalries that its own president, at odds with the government, was not even invited. Bafflingly, an MoU signed by Polish energy majors on rebuilding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure included no Ukrainian counterpart.
It is tempting simply to blame the diplomatic escalation that preceded the conference in early June and contributed to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s absence. It is true that there is a deep-seated and painful dispute over Ukraine’s wartime and post-war insurgent army, and that Ukraine’s decision to name a special forces unit in its honor was poorly judged. Kyiv surely cannot have been surprised by the response.
But there is a broader issue for Poland. The dispute exposed a deeper weakness: Poland still struggles to align institutions behind strategic objectives, regardless of which political forces are governing the country.
That weakness matters because reconstruction is no longer simply about rebuilding Ukraine. It is increasingly about determining who will shape its future economy, industrial partnerships, transport and data corridors, and political orientation. Various EU states have understood this, small and large, especially Germany. Berlin and Kyiv have deepened defense-industrial cooperation, expanded drone partnerships, and strengthened economic ties at remarkable speed.
For Ukraine, Germany offers industrial scale and political weight within the European Union. One explanation discussed in diplomatic circles is that Kyiv has begun to view this growing relationship as reducing its dependence on Warsaw. Whether that is correct matters less than the fact that it may now be influencing Ukrainian decisions. The more Poland appears divided or reactive, the easier it becomes for Ukraine to treat it as indispensable, but only for infrastructure, not for politics.
This is where the history dispute found fertile ground. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist movement that fought Soviet rule after the Second World War, was also responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Polish civilians in the Volhynia region. As Timothy Snyder has argued, Ukrainians tend to remember the UPA through its post-war struggle against the Red Army, whereas Poles remember above all the Volhynia massacres of 1943. These competing memories cannot be reconciled by decree; they can only be managed.
Zelenskyy’s decision to grant a military unit the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” placed Poland’s leadership in a dilemma. Ignore it, and look weak. Respond, and the dispute shifts onto terrain where emotion quickly overtakes calculation. Polish President Nawrocki chose the latter. His decision to revoke Zelenskyy’s Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, was forceful enough to inflame Kyiv.
Both sides have reason to believe escalation works in their favor. In Poland, anti-Ukrainian sentiment has expanded well beyond the political fringe. Even Prime Minister Donald Tusk has adjusted his rhetoric, arguing that the period of one-sided Polish assistance has ended.
Zelenskyy faces different pressures: wartime nationalism, veterans’ politics, and a growing confidence that Ukraine possesses alternatives unavailable in 2022. Some in Kyiv may also calculate that a colder atmosphere in Poland encourages at least part of the Ukrainian diaspora (more than a million Ukrainians live in Poland) to return home. The danger is that both sides may be confusing short-term political incentives with reality.
Poland has enjoyed a manageable security environment because Ukraine has borne the human cost of resisting Russia. Ukraine, meanwhile, remains dependent on infrastructure running through Poland. Most military assistance, equipment, and supplies sustaining Ukraine’s war effort still move through Polish ports, railways, roads, and the “J-town” city of Rzeszów.
Both countries face demographic decline, and both benefit from the presence of Ukrainians working in the Polish economy. The current trajectory, therefore, undermines interests shared by Warsaw and Kyiv alike. It also weakens the gradual emergence of a Baltic–Black Sea security community, long entertained as the Intermarium or Three Seas Initiative, now increasingly connected to the Nordic states. Its realization would strengthen Europe’s eastern flank and reinforce the shift of American strategic attention eastward.
For Ukraine, there is an additional risk. Germany cannot simply replace Poland. Berlin’s current trajectory depends on political conditions that may not endure. The AfD is no longer a fringe force, while France faces its own electoral uncertainties, as do other EU countries. Across Europe, support for Ukraine remains substantial but increasingly conditional.
At the very moment Kyiv appears willing to toy with the notion of greater tensions with Warsaw, it is becoming more exposed to political developments elsewhere over which it exercises little influence. Betting on Germany while alienating Poland may prove a far riskier calculation than it appears today.
Poland remains Ukraine’s critical ally, and it is in Ukraine’s interest that it stays one. Ukraine remains Poland’s shield, and it is in Poland’s interest that it wins. Russia does not need the two countries to become adversaries. It merely needs them to stop seeing each other as indispensable. Neither side should allow that to happen.
Maciej Bukowski is the Head of the Energy and Resilience Program at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw and is a non-resident fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), where he writes about issues including Central European security.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
