The Office of the Prime Minister of Poland has announced that Donald Tusk is due to meet with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on 29 July.
“This afternoon in Lublin, Prime Minister Donald Tusk will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The talks will focus on the outcome of his visit to the US and his meeting with President Donald Trump,” the Office stated in a post on social media.
Zelenskyy’s office has not yet reported on the meeting.
The Ukrainian President was in the US the day before. During his visit, he met, amongst others, with the US President. According to Zelenskyy, he and Trump discussed licences to manufacture interceptors for the ‘Patriot’ system and ‘some other ideas that might help’, as well as the importance of stepping up the diplomatic process. The meeting was closed to the press. Zelenskyy was at the White House for over an hour.
The meeting between Tusk and Zelenskyy comes against the backdrop of yet another attack on Ukrainians in Poland: on 26 July in Wrocław, a group of men beat up a Ukrainian couple; two of the attackers have already been arrested.
According to Radio Free Europe’s ‘How Are You?’ project, this is one of several attacks on Ukrainians that have taken place in Poland during July this year. The Polish National Police Headquarters reports an increase in the number of reports of hate crimes on ethnic grounds against Ukrainians. In the first six months of 2026, Ukrainian citizens have already filed 180 such reports with the police – a 30 per cent increase on last year.
The day before, the Polish Prime Minister condemned the violence and called on the Polish President, Karol Nawrocki, to respond to such incidents.
“I am addressing the President directly, urging him to break his silence on this matter,” Tusk said on 28 July. He called for a “war on violence, hatred and impunity” to be declared.
Tusk emphasised that “politicians – from the President down to right-wing leaders – also bear responsibility for this rise in violence and the decline in Poland’s standing”.
In June, tensions arose between the presidents of Ukraine and Poland over historical issues.
On 19 June, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced that he had decided to strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle due to his decree naming a unit of the Armed Forces after the ‘Heroes of the UPA’. Navrotsky stated that, for the majority of Polish society, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains “a formation responsible for brutal crimes committed against citizens of the Republic of Poland during the Second World War”.
On 20 June, Zelenskyy sent the order via ‘Nova Poshta’. At the same time, he stated that ‘Ukraine remains grateful to Poland for its support and is open to further cooperation’.
Subsequently, in an interview with TSN, Zelenskyy attributed the Polish president’s decision to purely domestic political struggles. The Polish president countered that the dispute was linked to domestic political processes in Poland.
On 8 July, at the NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki for the first time since the conflict over the Order of the White Eagle. Zelenskyy said that “the conversation was important and necessary”; it lasted over an hour.
“We face a single, shared threat: Russia. It is vital that we maintain mutual understanding and support, and act in unison. Our countries need nothing but strong relations. We agreed to continue the dialogue,” the president said.
For his part, Nawrocki emphasised that “despite the existence of complex and unresolved historical issues, Poland and Ukraine must maintain a constructive dialogue and cooperate in the face of the common threat from Russia”.