Ukraine wants to soon begin exhumations of Ukrainians in Poland

In September of this year, Ukraine plans to begin exhuming the remains of Ukrainians who were improperly buried in Poland.

The Deputy Minister of Culture Andriy Nadzhos said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

He said that in December the parties exchanged lists of possible locations for such work: the Poles handed over 13 locations, the Ukrainians — 4.

Currently, such work is being carried out at Zboišče in Lviv, where the remains of Polish soldiers who died at the beginning of World War II are being exhumed.

"The Ukrainian side is preparing for such work on the territory of Poland — in the village of Yurechkova. We plan to conduct a preparatory visit there in mid-August, and in September — to begin excavations. We want to make it before the start of the rainy season," he added.

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

After Ukraine gained independence, the issue of the Volyn tragedy was repeatedly raised by politicians in both countries. Ukraine and Poland held joint events to honour the victims and tried to find points of understanding. However, after Poland recognized the Volyn tragedy as genocide in 2016, discussions intensified.

In response to the mass destruction of Ukrainian monuments in Poland in 2015-2017 and due to the inadequate investigation of these crimes, Ukraine imposed so-called moratoriums on the search and exhumation of the remains of Poles who were killed in 1943-1945 by UPA fighters.

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 to resolve the problematic issues. They developed a draft regulation of the group to resolve them, but Poland has not yet approved it.

In June 2022, the Ministries of Culture of Ukraine and Poland signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the Field of National Remembrance. It provided for the search, exhumation, and burial of victims. The Memorandum was to come into force after the end of martial law in Ukraine. However, Poland, during the full-scale Russian invasion, constantly raises the issue of searching for and exhuming the graves of Poles in Ukraine.

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

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

• In January 2025, Ukraine for the first time allowed the exhumation of the bodies of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy. And in May, the exhumation of the victims of 1945 was completed in the Ternopil region — in Poland it is called a breakthrough.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki is looking forward to the continuation of the partnership between Kyiv and Warsaw. However, according to him, this requires resolving long-standing historical issues — most likely, he was referring to the Volyn tragedy.

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