Duda: success can be declared only when the search and exhumation process truly begins

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha issued a joint statement on Tuesday, confirming that Ukraine sees no obstacles to conducting search and exhumation work on its territory.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk commented on this declaration on the X platform. "Ukraine will not block the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia massacre. Our ministers are now starting work on the specifics. I hope this time there will be no further obstacles."

"This is the key to the full reconciliation of our nations, so crucial in this dramatic moment of our shared history," wrote the prime minister.

President Andrzej Duda, speaking from Armenia's capital city of Yerevan, was asked about the matter during his press conference.

"Success will likely have many fathers. Without publicity and without creating a media stir, I have been discussing this primarily with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for some time now, consistently and systematically. These are difficult matters. I hope that by acting persistently and calmly, we will achieve this," Duda stated.

He emphasized that he "observes the statements of the Ukrainian side with satisfaction." "I hope the process will continue and contribute to resolving these important historical issues and calming the situation," the president concluded.

Duda also mentioned the burial of the victims. "My compatriots who lost their loved ones, murdered in Volhynia and other places, simply want to have graves for their relatives. They want to know the locations of their burials, to be able to go there, simply to pray and light a symbolic candle," he emphasized.

The President of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Karol Nawrocki, emphasized that the institution is ready to commence exhumation work in Volhynia.

Nawrocki stressed that the Institute has consistently worked since 2017 to ensure that all exhumation requests and related efforts in Volhynia become a reality. He explained that the first request for search and exhumation work was submitted by IPN in 2017 and included numerous locations. Between 2017 and 2024, IPN sent a total of nine such requests, none of which were approved by the Ukrainian side.

Nawrocki emphasized the importance of verifying public declarations with action. He stated: "If today’s public statements by politicians are not merely political declarations, we at IPN - the only institution ready to carry out exhumation work in Volhynia - are waiting for formal confirmation and responses to our requests submitted since 2017."

He assured that the Institute’s Office for Search and Identification is fully prepared to begin actual search efforts in Volhynia within 24 hours of receiving approval.

Since the spring of 2017, Poland and Ukraine have been embroiled in a dispute over a ban on searches and exhumations of Polish war and conflict victims' remains on Ukrainian territory, imposed by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP). The ban followed the demolition of a UPA monument in Hruszowice in April 2017.

For years, Poland and Ukraine have differed in their historical interpretations of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which perpetrated a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign between 1943 and 1945. Approximately 100,000 Poles were killed during attacks on Polish residents of 150 Volhynian villages.

For the Polish side, these events represent a condemnable act of genocide - massive and systematic. For Ukrainians, they are seen as the result of a symmetrical armed conflict, with shared responsibility between both sides. Additionally, Ukrainians aim to view OUN and UPA exclusively as anti-Soviet organizations, linking them to the resistance against the USSR.

Between 2017 and 2024, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) submitted nine official requests to Ukrainian administrative bodies, covering search and exhumation work at 65 locations (some repeated due to the need for renewed applications). While some requests were approved and work was conducted, others were denied, and certain applications received no response.