‘We will not haggle over the dead,’ Polish FM says as Poland, Ukraine resume Volhynia exhumations

 “Both sides will simply fulfil a Christian duty—we will not haggle over the dead,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski declared on Friday after Polish and Ukrainian teams began exhuming the remains of Poles massacred in Puzhnyky in 1945.

Poland's chief diplomat, Radosław Sikorski.

PAP/Leszek Szymański

The excavations mark a breakthrough in long-fraught historical talks: Kyiv revoked its moratorium on Polish wartime graves last November after seven years.

Forensic specialists from Poland’s Pomeranian Medical University and Institute of National Remembrance, along with Ukraine’s Volhynian Antiquities foundation, are now working under a project funded by Poland’s culture ministry.

Sikorski, speaking on TOK FM radio, said Ukraine “understands Polish sensitivities” as the two nations stand “very close” against Russian aggression.

DNA samples from relatives will help identify up to 120 villagers killed on 12-13 February 1945 by a unit of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Government envoy Paweł Kowal said Warsaw has filed 13 further requests covering other Volhynia sites as well as Stalin-era and 1939 defensive-war graves, all awaiting Ukrainian approval.

(jh)

Source: PAP