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Poland Announces Warsaw Wall of Remembrance as Volhynia Commemorations Intensify

The move signals Poland’s effort to enshrine Polish World War II victims and will shape joint forensic work in Volyn that could affect bilateral ties.

Overview

  • Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on July 11 a Wall of Remembrance in Warsaw with an eternal flame and the names of every identified victim that Poland says were killed by Ukrainian nationalists in World War II.
  • Poland’s defense minister Władysław Kosiniak‑Kamysz traveled to Olyka on July 11 to attend memorial events, call for exhumations and push for reconciliation based on truth, remembrance and forgiveness.
  • Oleksandr Alfyorov, head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, attended Volyn commemorations and urged honest, non‑politicized remembrance and joint services for Polish and Ukrainian victims.
  • Joint archaeological work continues: a recent Polish‑Ukrainian search in Puzhnyky found no mass grave and a new phase of exhumations and reburials is scheduled to begin on July 13 in former Volyn villages.
  • The row over memory follows Kyiv’s decision to name a unit after the UPA and the revocation of Zelenskyy’s Polish honour, and it risks complicating military, reconstruction and humanitarian cooperation between Poland and Ukraine.