To join the EU Ukraine must resolve the Volyn tragedy first. This was stated by the Minister of National Defense of Poland, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz. He did not specify what he meant by “resolving.”
The Polish minister emphasized that his country “supports Ukraine as much as possible.” However, relations between the states are “not perfect” due to “unresolved historical issues.”
Similar statements were made last year by then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Paweł Jabłoński, who said that Ukraine must resolve the issue of exhuming the victims of the Volyn tragedy, otherwise, it “can forget about dreaming of joining the EU.”
The topic of the Volyn tragedy is one of the most controversial in Ukrainian-Polish relations and is actively used by Russian propaganda. The views of Kyiv and Warsaw on the causes, responsibility, and the number of victims on both sides differ somewhat. Ukraine disagrees with the “one-sided and politicized” assessment of these tragic events by Polish politicians and diplomats.
On July 11, 2023, on the 80th anniversary of the Volyn tragedy (1943-1944), the Polish Sejm adopted a resolution to honor the memory of the victims of those events. The document states that Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation should also include the recognition of guilt by Ukraine and the commemoration of the victims of World War II, as reported by the Polish Press Agency.
Tags: Conflict zone poland Russia russia ukraine war Ukraine
