Ukraine committed to speeding up search efforts in Volyn – Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine is committed to speeding up search efforts in villages where victims of the Volyn tragedy may be buried. [The Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.]

Source: Zelenskyy in his evening address

Quote: "Every year on this day, Poland and Ukraine honour the memory of people – civilians – who were killed in Volyn during the Second World War. Today, representatives of the Ukrainian state took part in joint prayer services alongside representatives of the Polish state – both here in Ukraine and in Poland.

Ukraine is doing its part to fairly establish the facts about those who were killed in those years. Search operations are underway at the sites of former villages and burial locations. Ukraine is committed to accelerating this process. In just two days, exhumation work will begin in the villages of Ostrivky and Volya Ostrovetska. What we need is the full truth and a Christian commemoration of the victims."

Details: Zelenskyy also noted that in our own time, Ukraine and Poland face one common threat – "a deadly threat to our independence, to both our states, to every city and every village. That threat is Russia.

As we speak about the past, we must not cast doubt on the future of our nations – the future of Ukraine, of Poland, and the future of all of Europe," he stressed.

Background:

• Poland's Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who attended memorial events in the Ukrainian town of Olyka, spoke about reconciliation and the inadmissibility of a "spiral of hatred".
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in his address marking the National Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Volyn tragedy, stressed the need to preserve solidarity "based on truth, memory and hope", and emphasised that remembrance must not be used as a tool of hatred.
• Ukraine's ambassador to Poland also honoured the victims of the Volyn tragedy at a memorial in Warsaw.
• Oleksandr Alforov, Head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, has emphasised that the search for burial sites of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy will continue, and he also hopes that the search for Ukrainian dead will begin in two villages in Poland.
• Meanwhile, Polish President Karol Nawrocki called for a legislative ban in Poland on the red-and-black Ukrainian Insurgent Army flag.

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