Ukraine allowed Poland to conduct a new exhumation of victims of the Volyn tragedy

Ukraine has granted Poland permission to conduct search and exhumation work in the village of Uhli in the Rivne region.

The corresponding note was signed by the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Vasyl Bodnar as he reported on Facebook.

The ambassador added that the Ukrainian side invites relevant representatives of the Polish side to participate in relevant work on site.

"I want to emphasize once again: Ukraine and I personally are ready to continue to cooperate with Polish partners in the historical sphere and on issues of conducting exhumations. We are open and honest. Only in this way can we achieve true understanding. I hope that Polish partners will also be open to a real dialogue on complex issues of our common historical past," he noted.

Relations between Poland and Ukraine in the context of exhumations

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 honor 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 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 allowed the exhumation of the bodies of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy for the first time. And in May, the exhumation of the victims of 1945 was completed in the Ternopil region — in Poland it was called a breakthrough.

And in September, a Ukrainian expedition began exhuming the bodies of UPA soldiers on Polish territory — in the village of Jureckova, Podkarpacie Voivodeship.

For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.