Poland is ready to start the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia tragedy within the next day.

The head of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki, reported that the Institute's experts are ready to go to Ukraine to search for and exhume the remains of Polish victims of the Volhynia tragedy. This was reported by Ukrinform.

According to him, there is currently no confirmation of the political declaration by the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland regarding the absence of obstacles for conducting the work.

'If the public statements of politicians are not just political declarations, then we are ready to conduct exhumation work, and this will be a formal response to the requests from the Institute of National Remembrance to the Ukrainian authorities since 2017, which have not been considered or have been rejected,' he said.

Nawrocki also confirmed that the Institute of National Remembrance is ready to start real search operations in Volhynia within 24 hours.

'We are waiting for confirmation of information from the Ukrainian and Polish ministries of foreign affairs,' he added.

Earlier, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski, noted that Ukraine would not hinder Poland in conducting the search and exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia tragedy. Previously, this process had been halted.

It should be noted that the Volhynia tragedy is one of the most complex issues in the relations between Ukraine and Poland. The views of both countries regarding the causes, responsibility, and number of victims differ, especially concerning Polish and Ukrainian victims and allegations against the UPA for mass killings of Poles in Volhynia.

In 2017, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance imposed a moratorium on the exhumation of remains, which was a response to the inactivity of the Polish authorities regarding the protection of Ukrainian burials in Poland. After Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to power, the moratorium was lifted, and Polish researchers were able to start work in Ukraine. Consequently, Poland restored the destroyed monument to Ukrainian soldiers in the Monastery but did not restore the names of the fallen.