The remains of 42 people were found during an exhumation in the village of Puzhnyky in the Ternopil region. The expedition will then identify the deceased.
This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine for European Integration Andrii Nadzhos.
"As of yesterday evening, we received information from our part of the Ukrainian expedition that the remains of 42 people had been discovered. That is, they have already been removed. They sent us photographs where we can see that the work has been completed," said Nadzhos.
After laboratory tests, researchers will determine the final number of victims, their gender and age. DNA tests will be carried out in Poland.
Researchers are cleaning the remains, conducting anthropological and medical analyses, and performing 3D scans, the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage said. At the request of the families of the deceased, the remains of the victims will be buried in the cemetery in Pużniki after the research. During the expedition, their personal belongings were also preserved, including buttons, fragments of rosaries, and medallions.
Ministry of Culture and Art of the Third Polish Republic
The head of the Polish-Ukrainian working group on historical dialogue, MP Pawel Kowal says that the exhumations in Puzhnyky are a breakthrough in relations between the two countries. As he noted, thanks to negotiations between politicians in Poland and Ukraine, "after decades of deadlock," the parties have found common ground.
He added that in some cases it is not known exactly where the bodies of World War II victims are buried. He noted that this is not only about the Volyn tragedy, but also about Stalinʼs repressions against Poles.
Exhumations in Puzhniki began on April 24, 2025. The location where they are ongoing is a wooded area on the site of a former village, where in February 1945, according to Polish estimates, 50-120 Poles may have died.
The Polish side calls these events of 1945 the “Volyn Massacre”. Ukrainian experts emphasize that the deaths of Poles on the night of February 12-13, 1945, were not “ethnic cleansing”. That is, these events do not belong to the Volyn tragedy, because historically and geographically this part of the Ternopil region did not belong to Volyn.
The Volyn tragedy
In 1943-1944, mass murders of Poles took place in Volyn. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance cites official data of 120 000 Poles killed in Volyn and the southeastern provinces of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and also mentions 5 000 Ukrainians killed. Ukrainian historians cite other figures: up to 20 000 Ukrainians killed and 35-40 000 Poles killed.
Discussions are also ongoing regarding the perpetrators and organizers of the crime. In Poland, the Volyn tragedy is called a "massacre", officially recognized as "genocide", and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is blamed, but this interpretation is not shared in Ukraine.
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 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 effect 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 Puzhniki).
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.
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