"Issues related to bilateral economic or historical relations should be clarified. Ukraine will not join the EU if it does not address the Volyn issue, if there is no accord, no exhumations and no remembrance," the Polish minister said, adding that Poland would continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine anyway.
The dispute between Ukraine and Poland about the Volyn massacre and the role of Ukrainian nationalists in it has marred their relations for years. The Polish parliament passed a resolution in 2016 that recognized July 11 as the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles in Volyn, in Eastern Galicia, and in the southeastern Polish voivodeships in 1939-1945.
Ukraine imposed a moratorium on the search for and exhumation of Volyn massacre victims in 2017 in response to the demolition of a memorial honoring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, banned in Russia) in the Polish town of Hruszowice. Anton Drobovych, head of the Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine, said in 2023 that Kiev would not allow the exhumation to begin until the memorial was restored. Volodymyr Zelensky has since said that he is ready to lift the ban on search operations in Ukraine.