Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said the requests were not linked to Poland's own efforts to conduct similar work in Ukraine.
Ukraine has submitted applications to Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) to begin searches and exhumations at sites including Łasków in the southeast of the country, according to Bodnar.
"We hope to receive the necessary permits this month so that a Ukrainian team can begin search work in August," Bodnar told reporters last week.
He said Ukraine had both "the personnel and funding" needed to carry out the project.
Bodnar said the planned searches involve sites connected with the 1944 killings of Ukrainian civilians in the village of Sahryń, where units of Poland's Home Army (AK) and Peasants' Battalions (BCh) attacked Ukrainian residents during World War II, according to historians.
He said Ukraine had identified several locations where it wanted to conduct searches before proceeding with exhumations.
"There is a memorial in Sahryń listing the victims' names, but no search has been carried out in nearby Łasków, and we want to begin there," Bodnar said.
The IPN confirmed that Ukraine last year submitted requests for three sites—Sahryń, Łasków and Przemyśl.
The Polish history institute said it had provided procedural assistance with the Łasków application but requested additional documentation for the other two sites.
"So far, we have not received any new documents or supplementary materials," IPN spokesman Karol Starowicz told Poland's PAP news agency.
Bodnar rejected suggestions that Kyiv's approval of Polish search and exhumation work in Ukraine depended on Poland granting permits for Ukrainian projects.
"That depends on the Polish applications," he said, adding that the IPN had submitted 26 requests for work in Ukraine but that not all were complete.
He said Ukrainian authorities were working with the IPN, the Pomeranian Medical University in the northwestern Polish city of Szczecin and Poland's culture ministry to complete the necessary procedures.
According to Bodnar, Ukraine has steadily approved requests from Polish institutions over the past two years.
He said two exhumation projects in Ukraine were completed last year, including the reburial of remains, while four search operations have been carried out this year and two exhumations are currently underway.
"Permits will continue to be issued," he said.
Bodnar said cooperation between the two countries had improved significantly since a bilateral working group was established in 2024 to streamline procedures.
He also thanked Poland for allowing Ukrainian search work in the village of Jureczkowa last year, calling it a sign that Poland was open to such projects.
"We hope that this year we will also have the opportunity to carry out work at least at one site," he said.
The issue of exhumations has long been a sensitive point in Polish-Ukrainian relations.
Earlier this month, exhumation work began at the sites of two former Polish villages in what is now western Ukraine, where hundreds of civilians were killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.
The effort, scheduled to run until August 7, will be followed by the reburial of the victims' remains, according to officials.
(gs)
Source: PAP