“As of today, the remains of over 30 people have been found. More than 20 people have been exhumed. In addition, a fairly significant number of artifacts were found and seized: buttons, boots, coins, crosses. The final number can only be established after extracting all the remains and anthropological studies. Currently, the joint expedition is very clearly and harmonious,” he said.
The Ukrainian ministry noted that the field stage of research on the territory of former plowmen is already completed.
According to Vujos, work at this place will be completed approximately in two weeks, and then the researchers will take up the selection of genetic material for a comparative analysis of DNA.
Parties pay special attention to the preparation of reports based on the results of exhumations. In particular, negotiations are underway to create a single report.
“This story can become the latest page in the general interpretation of the past. We are looking for what unites us, and not what is disconnected. Our benevolent attitude motivates Polish partners to help us in conducting search work in Poland,” overshos explained.
Ukraine and Poland agreed that the reburial of the remains would take place in the cemetery in the Puzhniki, emphasized in the Ministry of Culture.
Context
In October 2024, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory reported that in 2025 in the Rivne region they could be carried out to search And Exhumations of the Poles who became victims of the Volyn tragedy, although it was noted that many statements that sound in Poland on this subject are “unprofessional.”
On November 25 of the same year, the foreign ministers of Poland and Ukraine Radoslav Sikorsky and Andrei Sibiga accepted a joint statement on the creation of the Ukrainian-Polish working group, which will deal with the issue of the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.
On February 9, 2025, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Warsaw Vasily Bodnar confirmed in an interview with TVN 24 that the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy will begin in the spring in the Ternopil region.
The work began on April 24.
According to estimates, in 1945, about 80 people died in Puzhniki.
Volyn tragedy (in Polish historiography – Volyn massacre) – a number of mutual ethnic purges, which during the Second World War on Volyn were conducted by the Ukrainian rebel army on the one hand, the Kraiov army and other Polish formations on the other. The exact number of victims on both sides is unknown. It is believed that the victims of purges were 25 – 100 thousand Poles and from several thousand to 24 thousand. Ukrainians.
