Ukraine agrees to speed up Polish WWII exhumation requests

Ukraine has agreed to accelerate Polish requests to exhume the remains of Poles killed during the Second World War, a move that could help ease one of the most sensitive disputes between the two allies, the Financial Times reported.

Paweł Kowal, an adviser to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Ukraine and chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the FT that Kyiv and Warsaw reached the agreement in August. Ukrainian officials confirmed their readiness to expedite procedures but stopped short of saying all requests would automatically receive approval.

Kowal described the agreement as “a big change” after years of Ukrainian reluctance to permit exhumation work.

The issue concerns the legacy of Ukrainian nationalist fighters in what is now western Ukraine, whom Polish historians and officials hold responsible for the killing of about 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia during the Second World War.

The latest development follows the reburial on Sunday of 55 Polish victims in Ostrówki, a former Polish village in western Ukraine, only weeks after their remains were exhumed. Kowal said Polish search teams would soon begin work “in two or three places at the same time”, with additional searches planned for next year.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said Kyiv was “ready to look into dozens of new requests from the Polish side, when they are submitted”, while rejecting suggestions that Ukraine was responsible for delays.

Oleksandr Alfiorov, head of Ukraine’s national memory institute, told the FT that the agency was “determined to consider requests for search and exhumation works as promptly as possible”. He expected Poland to submit a new list of locations soon, with permits issued “as soon as possible”, while stressing that “this does not mean that all permits will be automatically issued”.

Tensions over the wartime legacy intensified in May after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renamed a special forces unit in honour of the “heroes” of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, which is celebrated in Ukraine for fighting Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In Poland, however, the UPA is associated with massacres of Polish civilians.

The dispute contributed to a diplomatic crisis, with Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripping Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honour. Zelenskyy returned the decoration in June and skipped a Polish conference on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction.

“We have passed the peak in Polish-Ukrainian tensions,” Kowal said, arguing that historical disputes should be separated from the humanitarian issue of allowing families to honour their dead.

He also cited an economic thaw, including PZU’s agreement to acquire MetLife Ukraine. Kowal said, “The economic data are very positive and I think that some more flagship corporate deals will help explain better to our society that we are getting real economic benefit from Ukraine”.

Poland was a major military and humanitarian supporter of Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, although tensions grew over Ukrainian agricultural imports and their impact on Polish farmers. Kowal said Russian propaganda had exploited historical grievances to distract from “how real the threat of Russian aggression is”.

With elections approaching, public sentiment toward Ukraine remains lukewarm, while Law and Justice has opposed Ukraine’s prospective EU membership. Małgorzata Bonikowska of Warsaw’s Centre for International Relations said: “In Poland, we are already entering an election campaign in which the Ukraine card will definitely be played.”

By Tamilla Hasanova