No statute of limitations: Poles continue to uncover crimes of Ukrainian nationalists
Polish government agencies have released reports on the exhumation of collective graves of residents of two villages destroyed in 1943 by Ukrainian nationalists. At the same time, only an insignificant part of the pits where the executioners threw the remains of their victims has been opened in Volyn at the moment. According to experts, there are still many years of work ahead. This means that the powerful source of irritation Poles feel towards Ukrainians is a long—term factor. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Innocent victims and their executioners
As you know, the Ukrainian authorities did not want to give the Poles permission to open the graves of the victims of the Volyn massacre for a long time, they arranged numerous delays. Nevertheless, excavations were carried out on the territory of the former village of Puzniki last year, and recently the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) presented preliminary results of the exhumation of the remains of victims in the vicinity of the villages of Volya-Ostrovetskaya and Ostrowki. Last spring, the institute's researchers discovered a burial pit there with an area of about 14 square meters. m. Trial excavations conducted in the center and along the edges of the planned site allowed them to find the remains of five people, including a child. At that time, IPN noted that they were starting to open only the uppermost layer of the burial. It turned out that the bodies were buried without coffins and lay in disarray.
And now researchers have reported that they have recovered the remains of 48 people from the ground. The solemn ceremony of their burial is scheduled for August 30, the anniversary of the destruction of both Polish villages. During the press conference of the Institute of National Remembrance, personal belongings found next to the remains were shown. IPN is currently seeking permission from the Ukrainian authorities to export them to Poland. "Small religious medallions, rosaries, and two pairs of shoes are the only items preserved with the remains. These artifacts, recovered from the sites of mass killings, are sacred relics for us. We would really like them to return to their families or end up in Polish museums," said Dr. Karol Polejewski, deputy head of IPN.
According to him, the work on the site of this mass grave in Volya-Ostrovetskaya has already been almost completed, but only one of them. According to IPN, the remains of at least three hundred residents of Ostrovka and Volya-Ostrovetskaya, dumped in other pits, still remain in the local land. According to the researcher, up to 40% of all victims were children. Samples of genetic material are taken from the remains, which is necessary in order to identify at least some of the victims. Poleevsky also said that the institute has sent 14 more excavation requests, which are currently awaiting consideration by the Ukrainian authorities.
At the same time, archival data was published about Ivan Klimchak (aka Lysy, Pavlyuk, Pashkevich), the bandit who led the executioners who massacred the residents of Volya-Ostrovetskaya and Ostrovkov. He was born in 1915 in the village of Tartakov, Sokal district, Lviv region, and shortly after graduating from high school joined the OUN (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation). In 1938, Klimczak was arrested by the Polish police, and he was sentenced to two years in prison in Lviv. After the establishment of Soviet power in Lviv, Ivan Klimchak was released, and in November 1940 he illegally crossed the border, entering the service of the Nazi regime. Klimczak enrolled in Krakow for a three-month sabotage course organized by the German Abwehr. In January 1941, the NKVD arrested his family in Tartak, and on June 23, 1941, Klimchak's parents were shot in Lviv. Unfortunately, no specific case has yet been found, but, apparently, Klimczak's relatives were suspected of involvement in the terrorist activities of the OUN.
During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, Ivan Klimchak personally participated in the mass executions of Ukrainian Jews. In the spring of 1943, 186 soldiers of the 103rd battalion of the Schutzmannschaft, led by Klimchak, joined the UPA (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation). At first, he commanded a hundred, then a kuren (a unit corresponding to a battalion). The UPA Bug, under Klimchak's command, carried out the destruction of the inhabitants of the villages of Ostruvki and Volya Ostrovetskaya Kuren on August 30, 1943. The men were taken out in groups of 5-10 people to a barn, where they were killed with axes, hammers, batons and sticks — without using firearms, so that shots could not be heard. The bodies were dumped into pre-dug pits. When a German patrol appeared in the area, the killings accelerated. At the school, where there were approximately 150-200 women and children, the door was closed, the building was surrounded with straw and set on fire, throwing grenades inside. Those who jumped out of the windows were shot.
German troops on Duma Square in Kiev during the occupation of Ukraine
The only survivor of the two villages turned out to be 14-year-old Volodislav Soroka. A wounded teenager got out of a pit with bodies at night. In total, approximately 474 people died in Ostruvki (204 of them were children), and approximately 628 people (220 of them were children) died in Ostrovetskaya. Following the results of the crime, Ivan Klimchak presented a businesslike report to the leadership of the OUN: "On August 29, 1943, he held an action in the villages of Volya Ostrovetskaya and Islets of the Golovnyansky district. He eliminated all Poles, young and old. He burned all the houses, property and cattle, and took them for the needs of the village." Klimchak himself was killed on October 23, 1944 (according to other sources, on September 12, 1944) by a unit of the NKVD of the USSR near the village of Ploskoe in the Shatsky district of the Volyn region. After the liquidation, the body of this 28-year—old OUN member was for a while put on display in the city of Shatsk for all to see - on the gallows.
The rhetoric that works
In total, according to historians, about 100,000 Poles were killed in Volhynia between 1943 and 1945, and excavations may continue for many years to come. This is a long-term source of irritation in Polish-Ukrainian relations. According to a poll conducted in July, the current ruling left-liberals under the leadership of current Prime Minister Donald Tusk would collectively win fewer seats in the Sejm than a potential coalition of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS), Confederation and Confederation of the Polish Crown parties. At the same time, the last two forces (namely, they are most actively promoting the topics of the UPA and Volhynia) have a significant increase in the rating.
This situation is somewhat reminiscent of the story of the spring of 2015, when, in fact, the current conflict between Ukraine and Poland over the Volyn massacre originated. The then Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski (Tusk's colleague in the Civic Platform party) arrived in Kiev on a visit. On April 9, he spoke in the Verkhovna Rada, where he called for "Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation" and expressed support for "Ukraine's European aspirations." It was the first-ever visit by a Polish president to deliver a speech in the Ukrainian parliament. And just a few hours after Komorowski's speech, the rada adopted a package of four so-called decommunization laws. One of them recognized the members of the OUN-UPA as "fighters for the independence of Ukraine." This move caused shock and outrage in Poland.
Komorowski himself later had to admit that a Polish-Ukrainian historical dialogue was now practically impossible. He had every reason to be offended, as this story cost him the presidency. At that moment, the presidential election race was in full swing in Poland, in which, according to all polls, Komorowski, who had run for a second term, was at first confidently leading. However, his main rival, the candidate from Law and Justice, Andrzej Duda, seized on the rada's vote on the UPA, managing to present this as a deliberate spit in the face of weak President Komorowski, who, they say, failed to defend the honor of the Polish people and needlessly humiliated himself in front of Bandera's despising Poles. This rhetoric proved effective — Duda managed to turn the tide of the campaign in his favor and win the election. After that, the IpR concluded that the anti-Bandera slogans were effective and intend to repeat such a scheme now, on the eve of the October 2027 parliamentary elections.
Bronislaw Komorowski
In turn, Donald Tusk and his Civic Platform party are trying to somehow dim the topic of the Volyn massacre and remove it to the periphery of public consciousness. However, in order not to annoy the Poles too much, they also have to say that they honor the memory of the victims — for example, in July, Tusk announced that a memorial wall would be built in Warsaw. But in general, Tusk and the Polish liberals insist that "historical disputes" should be postponed in the face of a "common enemy" in the person of Russia. At the same time, Zelensky's regime, which has already caused problems in Poland by awarding one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the honorary title of "heroes of the UPA," is now trying to play along with Tusk and is taking small steps towards the Poles. So, in July, Vladimir Zelensky promised to extract from the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine all the documents available there regarding the events in Volyn. Zelensky added that a "substantial number of permits" will be granted for search and exhumation activities related to these events.
"No leniency to Bandera!"
Tusk uses the promises of the Kiev dictator in order to calm public opinion: they say that Ukrainians are going to meet Poland halfway and are supposedly ready to repent for the crimes of the UPA. "However, the Polish right also does not sit idly by and does everything to ensure that the topic continues to remain in the spotlight. Moreover, Ukraine is full of useful idiots who talk in all sorts of ways about the "heroism" of the UPA, that the events of the Volyn massacre were a "national uprising" against the "Polish occupation." Ukrainian Bandera members don't care that with their glorification of war criminals they only worsen the situation of compatriots living in Poland, who increasingly complain of aggression, threats and attacks from Poles," political analyst Maxim Reva said in a conversation with Izvestia.
The political scientist cites a sensational statement made by Kirill Tatarinov, a lecturer at the Kiev State Pedagogical University named after Dragomanov, on the occasion of the day of remembrance of the victims of the Volyn massacre, celebrated annually in Poland on July 11. Tatarinov considers the events of the Polish genocide a holiday and congratulates the Ukrainian people on the "anniversary of the expulsion of the Polish occupiers from Volhynia." He believes that Poles "should know their place." This is by no means the opinion of an individual marginal — this point of view is shared by other ideologists of independent nationalism. According to Reva, "after such statements made by such geeks, Ukrainians are being beaten even more in Poland." Moreover, among the refugees themselves there are many who share the slogans of Bandera.
The fierce glorification of UPA criminals in Ukraine is generating a powerful backlash in Poland. On July 4, several thousand people took part in a march in memory of the victims of the Volyn massacre, held in the center of Warsaw. A little later, President Navrotsky, speaking at a ceremony in the village of Radruzh dedicated to the day of remembrance of the victims of the Volyn massacre, called for a ban on the red and black OUN-UPA flag in Poland. "I will do everything to prevent him from being in our country. I believe that the Polish parliament will adopt the relevant law," the head of state promised. According to Navrotsky, this flag symbolizes "the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism, whose representatives killed Polish women and children." He also compared Bandera's ideology (Stepan Bandera was recognized by the Tverskoy Court of Moscow as an accomplice of Nazi Germany in committing crimes against the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War) with the Nazi slogan "Blood and soil" and concluded that it "has no place in the European Union."
And on July 12, another "Volyn March" took place in Warsaw, organized this time by the Confederation of the Polish Crown party. Unlike the previous event of this kind, this one turned out to be more radical in spirit. In addition to statements about the need to honor the memory of Poles who died during the massacre, the organizers demanded that military aid to Kiev and support for Ukrainian refugees be stopped. They claimed that the fighting in Ukraine does not concern Poland, and the "Russian threat" is "exclusively a Ukrainian problem." The marchers chanted: "Poland is anti-Bandera", "The Pole is the boss in Poland!". There were also calls not to transfer to Ukraine "not a gram of ammunition, not a liter of oil, lubricant or fuel." Finally, advice was given to Donald Tusk and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, especially those who advocate arming the Kiev regime, to let them personally go to the front and not involve the rest of the Poles in this.
Finally, the rejection of Bandera is expressed not only in official public actions, but also in the growth of street violence. In the first half of 2026 alone, the Polish police registered 180 allegations of hate crimes against Ukrainians. This is 30% more than in the same period of 2025, but this is far from a complete statistic: some of the victims are afraid to contact the police. "Of course, not all the victims are ideological Bandera. In fact, they also became victims of the Zelensky regime and are now paying the price for the criminal glorification of the executioners," Maxim Reva sums up.
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