There are no obstacles to search and exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy – Sikorskyi

There are no obstacles to search and exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy in Ukraine. Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslav Sikorskyi said this after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiga and emphasized that “this is a joint agreed statement”, according to the correspondent of Radio Svoboda.

“Ukraine confirms that there are no obstacles to conducting search and exhumation works on the territory of Ukraine by Polish state institutions and private individuals in cooperation with relevant Ukrainian institutions in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, and declares its readiness to positively consider applications in these cases,” said Sikorskyi .

The minister added that “Poland will also mobilize its institutions, in particular, the Institute of National Memory, to be sensitive to Ukrainian demands.”

Sybiga noted that “as part of the Ukrainian-Polish working group, the mechanisms of exhumation work are being worked out, and that Ukrainians and Poles are interested in ensuring that there are no misunderstandings between them.”

“Currently, within the framework of a joint Ukrainian-Polish working group under the auspices of the ministries of culture of Poland and Ukraine, we are working out practical mechanisms for carrying out search and exhumation work,” said the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

The topic of the Volyn tragedy is one of the most controversial in Ukrainian-Polish relations. The views of Warsaw and Kyiv on the causes, responsibility and number of victims on both sides differ. But the main disagreement is the number of victims among Poles and Ukrainians and the accusation by the Polish side of the UPA of mass murders of Poles in Volyn.

In 2017, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance imposed a moratorium on the exhumation of bodies from graves. This was called a response to the inaction of the Polish authorities regarding the protection of Ukrainian burials in Poland.

After the election of Volodymyr Zelenskyi as the President of Ukraine in 2019, the ban was lifted, and Polish researchers conducted some work in Ukraine. Instead, Poland restored the monument to Ukrainian soldiers in Monastir destroyed by vandals, but without reproducing their names.