UPDATE: Ministry of Culture confirms Poland can resume WWII massacre searches in Puzhnyky
Archaeologists are expected to begin work in spring 2026 to locate the remains of victims of a World War II–era massacre attributed to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Maciej Dancewicz, vice-president of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, told RMF FM that the approval from Kyiv covers searches aimed at locating a second burial pit containing the remains of Poles killed in 1945, but stressed that it is not yet permission for exhumations, which require a separate request once the grave is found.
Under Ukrainian law, a local company will carry out the search, with specialists from the Pomeranian Medical University and Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance also expected to take part.
Polska otrzymała zgodę na kolejne prace poszukiwawcze w Puźnikach na Wołyniu - dowiedział się reporter RMF FM. W dołach...
Opublikowany przez RMF24.pl Wtorek, 30 grudnia 2025
The first exhumations in Puzhnyky took place from 23 April to 10 May 2025, uncovering at least 42 victims, with a funeral held on 6 September.
These were the first such operations since Ukraine lifted its 2024 ban on searching for and exhuming Polish war victims.
Puzhnyky, a former Polish village in what is now western Ukraine, was the site of a massacre on the night of 12–13 February 1945, when units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) killed between 50 and 120 Polish civilians.
The attack was led by Petro Khamchuk, commander of a UPA unit known as the ‘Grey Wolves,’ and neither he nor his men were ever prosecuted.
It is estimated that UPA attacks on Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945, as part of the so-called Volhynia massacres, resulted in about 100,000 deaths, though the classification of these events as genocide remains disputed among historians.
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Source: RMF FM