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 25-100 thousand Poles and from several thousand to 24 thousand Ukrainians were victims.
In 2016, the Seim of Poland recognized the Volyn tragedy with genocide, and also established on July 11 by the national day of memory of the victims of the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the second Commonwealth. In response, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a statement in which she called the decision of the Polish Sejm an incorrect assessment of tragic events.
In 2017, Ukraine, in response to the destruction and damage of Ukrainian monuments on the territory of Poland, introduced a moratorium on the exhumation of the Poles burials in Ukrainian territory. All these years, this issue has been raised between countries.
Poland stated that she would discuss issues of the exhumation of the Poles in the framework of negotiations on the entry of Ukraine to the EU. In 2025, work on the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy resumed, they were held in April in April in the Ternopil region. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine said that “this story can become the latest page in the general interpretation of the past.”
