Poland and Ukraine to commemorate Volhynia together says president
Poland and Ukraine have agreed to cooperate on commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia Massacre, the Polish president said on Thursday.
"The 80th anniversary of the Volhynia Massacre will see a number of joint Polish-Ukrainian undertakings," Duda said in an interview for the interia.pl website.
"We agreed with the Ukrainian side that we will not reveal the details to the media. Please be patient," he added.
Between 1943-44, around 100,000 Poles were slaughtered by the ultra-nationalist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions of pre-war eastern Poland (today part of western Ukraine).
The killings still cast a shadow over Ukrainian-Polish relations despite the close bonds between the two countries forged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In the past Ukrainian governments, for example, were reluctant to permit Polish teams to search for the remains of murdered Poles.
Asked about the current situation surrounding exhumations, Duda said a search for victims was underway without any hindrance from the Ukrainians.
He added that "the current Ukrainian authorities have a better understanding of this whole issue than its predecessors did."
"The most important thing is that the search projects are under way, because only a few years ago this was not the case," Duda said. (PAP)
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