Ukraine has granted Poland permission to exhume the victims of the Volhynia tragedy.

Ukraine will not obstruct Poland in conducting search and exhumation efforts on its territory. Polish and Ukrainian institutions will collaborate in accordance with national legislation. This was reported by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski following a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiha in Warsaw on November 26, as stated by PAP.

Sikorski added that the Polish side is mobilizing its own institutions, such as the Institute of National Remembrance, which will be “sensitive to Ukrainian requests” regarding the exhumation of victims of the Volhynia tragedy.

In turn, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha stated that Ukrainians and Poles are interested in avoiding misunderstandings, as “every family has the right to honor the memory of their ancestors with dignity.”

“Currently, within the framework of the joint Ukrainian-Polish working group under the auspices of the ministries of culture of Poland and Ukraine, we are working on practical mechanisms for conducting search and exhumation work,” Sybiha reported.

Earlier, Polish high-ranking officials repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine's Euro-integration is impossible without addressing the issue of the Volhynia tragedy. In response, Polish President Andrzej Duda called the statements by some members of Polish ministries regarding blocking Ukraine's EU membership due to the Volhynia tragedy “Vladimir Putin's policy.”

During the meeting with the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on November 26, Radoslaw Sikorski assured that the Polish side would use the upcoming presidency in the EU Council to expedite Ukraine's Euro-integration process as much as possible. At the same time, he noted that negotiations would be challenging, “however, no issues unrelated to EU membership” would affect Poland's position.

Subsequently, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski, in a comment to journalists, stated that this landmark decision lifts a seven-year moratorium on the search and exhumation of the remains of victims of the Volhynia tragedy. He added that search and exhumation work could begin in the spring of 2025.

Update. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the declaration of no obstacles for conducting search and exhumation work for the victims of the Volhynia tragedy is the key to full reconciliation between Ukraine and Poland.

“Ukraine will not block the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia massacre (the version in Polish historiography). Our ministers are starting to work on specifics. I hope that this time there will be no more obstacles. This is a guarantee of complete reconciliation between our nations, which is so necessary at this dramatic moment in our shared history,” the Prime Minister wrote on X.

The Issue of the Volhynia Tragedy in Ukrainian-Polish Relations

It should be noted that despite close cooperation between Ukraine and Poland, the issue of the Volhynia tragedy in 1942-1943 remains a stumbling block in relations between the two countries. The main disagreement lies in the number of victims among Poles and Ukrainians and the accusations from the Polish side against the UPA for mass killings of the Polish population in Volhynia.

Since spring 2017, a ban imposed by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance on the search and exhumation of the remains of the victims of the Volhynia tragedy has been in effect, following the dismantling of the UPA monument in Hruszowice.

In 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to lift the imposed ban, and that same year the first search operations were conducted in Lviv. The Ukrainian side conditioned the issuance of subsequent permits on the restoration of the damaged grave of UPA fighters in the Monastery near the border with Ukraine in January 2020. The destroyed gravestone was restored at that time, but without a list of names of UPA soldiers who died in battles against the Soviet NKVD.

Between 2017 and 2024, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance sent nine official requests to the Ukrainian administration for permission to conduct search and exhumation works at 65 locations in Ukraine. Some of these were approved by the Ukrainian side, while others remained unanswered or were denied, PAP reported.