Poland hails step towards defusing Ukraine Volyn massacre history row

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance announced it planned to authorise field research in 2025 into the Volyn massacre in western region of Rivne, a dark episode of massacres by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.

Poland on Wednesday (2 October) lauded Ukraine’s decision to pave the way for exhumation of some World War II-era victims of massacres by Ukrainian nationalists after the dispute over the issue soured ties between the neighbours.

Discord over the 1943-1945 Volyn massacres has led to diplomatic tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw, otherwise allies as Ukraine battles Russia’s invasion.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities said they would greenlight the exhumation of some of the victims, a move that Warsaw has long campaigned for.

The announcement came during the first visit of newly appointed Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga to Poland.

“This is good news and a step in the right direction,” Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski told the national news agency PAP.

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, a state body, announced it planned to authorise field research in 2025 into the Volyn massacre in western region of Rivne, a necessary step before exhumations.

According to local media, such works had been suspended since 2017, during a previous episode of tensions between the two neighbours.

The Polish government estimates that around 100,000 Poles and 5,000 Ukrainians were killed between 1943 and 1945 in the regions of Rivne and Volyn of what is now west Ukraine.

The main objectives of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was to win Ukraine’s independence by ousting Nazi and later Soviet occupiers and to clear Poles from territories that it claimed were historically Ukrainian land.

Official Ukrainian estimates put the death toll at up to 40,000 Poles and 20,000 Ukrainians.

In recent months, several prominent Polish officials have stated that Ukraine would not join the European Union until the Volyn dispute has been settled, demands that have drawn on the Ukrainian side.

Confronted for two and a half years with a Russian invasion that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and devastated entire regions, Ukraine hopes to join the bloc under a fast-track procedure.

The Ukrainian authorities fear that Warsaw, a staunch ally of Ukraine in the face of the invasion, will use the historic dispute as leverage against its neighbour during its rotating presidency of the EU, which begins in January.