Tusk: Poland and Ukraine Reach Initial Agreements on the Exhumation of Victims of the Volhynia Tragedy.

Agreements regarding the exhumation of victims of the Volhynia tragedy have been reached, reported Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the social network X. He thanked the culture ministers of Poland and Ukraine for their cooperation and expressed hope for further decisions in this direction. The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory plans to search for remains in the Rivne region in 2025 in accordance with requests from Polish citizens.

Finally, a breakthrough. There is a decision on the first exhumations of Polish victims of the UPA. Thank you to the culture ministers of Poland and Ukraine for good cooperation. We are waiting for further decisions.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) January 10, 2025

The Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radek Sikorski, stated that Kyiv has removed all obstacles for the exhumation of Volhynian victims. The Polish Institute of National Memory is ready to send specialists to Ukraine to begin search operations. The Volhynia tragedy, according to the Institute of History of Ukraine, is one of the deadliest episodes of the Ukrainian-Polish conflict during World War II. Poles estimate the number of dead at least 35,000, of which 18,000 have been identified. Ukrainian losses amount to between 9,000 and 10,000, according to a project by the Ukrainian Catholic University.

It should be noted that during a meeting with French President Macron, Donald Tusk stated that Polish troops will not enter Ukraine even after a ceasefire. He also emphasized that all decisions regarding Poland's actions will be made solely in Warsaw. By the way, after Tusk became Prime Minister, he introduced a plan to reduce the EU's energy dependence on Russia and imposed new sanctions against imports of Russian liquefied natural gas and nuclear technologies.