Warsaw, Kyiv exhume Volyn massacre victims at center of diplomatic quarrel
Polish and Ukrainian archeologists are conducting joint exhumations of victims from the World War II-era Volyn massacres. The project aims to identify remains and potentially improve diplomatic relations strained by historical disagreements over the events.
Why it matters
The exhumations represent a sensitive effort to reconcile historical trauma between two nations currently aligned in a modern geopolitical conflict.
Add TT as Preferred Source Beneath two now-deserted villages in western Ukraine — the site of World War II-era massacres — archeologists are uncovering the bones at the heart of a dispute that has strained relations between Warsaw and Kyiv for years.
Disagreements over what happened and who is responsible for the Volyn massacres have long cast a shadow over ties between the otherwise now close neighbors.
Between 1943 and 1945, about 70,000 to 100,000 civilians were killed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in territory occupied by Nazi Germany, according to Polish estimates of the toll.
Warsaw calls it a “genocide” against the Polish minority, while Ukraine hails the UPA as freedom fighters, sees the events as a wartime “tragedy” and says that Ukrainians were killed in retaliation.
Amid sunflower fields and forests, joint Polish-Ukrainian teams of archeologists have been carefully excavating the remains of victims.
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