At the request of the Poles, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance plans to find the victims of the Volyn tragedy

In 2025, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance plans to conduct a search for the victims of the Volyn tragedy in the territory of the Rivne region in response to the appeal of Polish citizens. Poland is planned to be involved as an observer.

This is stated on the institutionʼs website.

If Polish citizens provide the necessary clarifications about the localization of potential search sites, Ukraine will help them, "despite the war and the difficult economic situation ."

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance will cooperate with the State Interdepartmental Commission for Perpetuating the Memory of the Participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Victims of War and Political Repression, and the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine. It is these institutions that can issue permits for search operations, exhumations and arrangement of monuments. The Institute will also cooperate with specialized organizations that have the right to carry out such work in Ukraine.

The Volyn tragedy

In 1943-1944, mass murders of Poles took place in Volyn. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance cites official data on 120,000 dead Poles in Volyn and in the southeastern voivodships of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and also mentions 5,000 Ukrainians killed. Ukrainian historians cite other figures: up to 20 thousand Ukrainians killed and 35-40 thousand Poles killed.

Discussions about the perpetrators and organizers of the crime are also ongoing. In Poland, the Volyn tragedy is called a "massacre", officially recognized as "genocide", the Ukrainian rebel army is blamed, but Ukraine does not agree with this interpretation.

Relations between Poland and Ukraine in the context of the Volyn tragedy

In December 2020, the heads of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the Institute of National Remembrance of the Republic of Poland agreed to hold consultations on the settlement of problematic issues. This is how the draft regulation of the group on their solution was worked out, but Poland still has not agreed to it.

In June 2022, the ministries of culture of Ukraine and Poland signed a memorandum on cooperation in the field of national memory. It provided for the search, exhumation and burial of the victims. The memorandum was supposed to enter into force after the termination of martial law on the territory of Ukraine. But Poland, during the full-scale invasion of Russia, constantly raises the issue of finding and exhuming graves of Poles on the territory of Ukraine.

In 2023, Ukraine went to meet Poland and conducted joint research with the Poles on the territory of the former rural cemetery of the village of Sadove of the Chortkiv district of the Ternopil region (the former village of Puzhnyki).

At the same time, Poland did not comply with Ukraineʼs request to restore the memorial plaque at the burial site of UPA soldiers on Mount Monastyr. The question of its restoration in its original form, with the names of those buried in this mass grave, was raised at the highest level — by the presidents of Ukraine and Poland.

The issue of the Volyn tragedy is also important in the context of Ukrainian European integration. The other day, the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry said that his country will raise the issue of the exhumations of the Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy in the first chapter of the negotiations on Ukraineʼs membership in the EU.

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