Overview
- Polish and Ukrainian officials attended July 11 commemorations and announced concrete steps to investigate the World War II killings, with exhumations set to begin around July 13 at Volyn sites named by Kyiv and Warsaw.
- Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a Wall of Remembrance in Warsaw that will list identified victims of 20th‑century wars in Ukraine and include an eternal flame, a project meant to enshrine names found through forensic work.
- Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki proposed legislation to ban the red‑and‑black UPA flag and has revoked honors for President Zelensky after Kyiv’s May decision to name a Ukrainian unit after the UPA, keeping diplomatic strain in place.
- Warsaw’s Resilience Council and Polish historians have publicly cautioned that Russia’s recent release of declassified Volhynia files appears likely to be an FSB information operation and urged the public to await expert review of the documents.
- The dispute links contested memory to present security: officials say joint forensic research and careful historical dialogue are needed to prevent the rift from harming defence, reconstruction and EU‑related cooperation between the two allies.