Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland confirms start of exhumations of victims of Volyn tragedy in spring

Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Vasyl Bodnar confirmed the start of work on the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy in the spring. The ambassador said this on TVN24, UNN reports.

We are planning to exhume the victims of the Volyn massacre in the spring at the first site for which we have already received permission, i.e. Puzhnyky. We are now also working to make decisions about all other sites on Ukrainian and Polish territory,

When asked whether the exhumations in Puzhniki would begin in April, Bodnar said, "We don't know yet in which month, but we are preparing so that, weather permitting, all permits will be issued and the team from the Polish side will be ready to start these works.

According to Ukrainian law, there must be a Ukrainian company licensed to carry out such work, and the Polish side already has such a partner (...). This cooperation is being developed with a Ukrainian institution, it has received all the permits, and when the teams go together and start digging, the community will know, and we will announce it through the ministers of culture,

Addendum

Since the spring of 2017, Warsaw and Kyiv have been in dispute over the ban on the search and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts in Ukraine, imposed by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. The ban was issued after the dismantling of the UPA monument in Hruszowice in April 2017.

The decision to lift the moratorium on the search for and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of the Volyn crime, which had been in effect since 2017,  was announced in late November 2024  during a joint press conference by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Poland and Ukraine Radoslaw Sikorski and Andriy Sybiga.

At that time, Ukraine confirmedthat "there are no obstacles to the conduct of search and exhumation works on the territory of Ukraine by Polish state institutions and private structures in cooperation with the relevant Ukrainian institutions, in accordance with Ukrainian legislation" and stated  "readiness to positively consider requests on these issues".

Recall

As UNN previously reported , 20 Polish and Ukrainian experts will exhume the victims in the village of Puznyky in late April. The work will last a month and will include anthropological and genetic research.