A mass grave was found on the first day of new Polish-Ukrainian searches for bodies in the former villages of Ostrivky and Volya Ostrovetska in the Volyn region. The work will continue until May 1
This was reported by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance wrote about the start of the excavations the day before.
The burial was discovered on the territory of the former Strażytsia estate in Wola Ostrowiec. It is located approximately ten meters from the memorial site, where exhumations were carried out in 1992. At this stage of the excavations, it is impossible to estimate the size of the burial.
Instytut Pamięci Narodowej / X
The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance writes that at the end of August 1943 (on the night of August 28-29, and according to other sources — August 30) Ostrivky and Wola Ostrowiec were subjected to an armed attack. According to archival data, the majority of the inhabitants of the villages were killed, and the villages themselves were burned. The UINP calls for a Polish-Ukrainian dialogue to honor the memory of civilian victims on both sides.
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance writes that this was done by "Ukrainian nationalists" — that is, fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
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 accepted in Ukraine.
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 resolving 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 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.
In September, a Ukrainian expedition began exhuming the bodies of UPA soldiers on Polish territory — in the village of Jureckova, Podkarpacie Voivodeship.
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