Heads of Polish and Ukrainian national remembrance institutes hold first meeting since 2018

Senior delegations from Poland and Ukraine’s state institutes of national remembrance have held talks in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, marking the first time the heads of the two organisations have met in eight years.

The meeting, at which the two sides discussed issues including exhumations of World War Two victims and possible joint research projects, comes as Poland and Ukraine seek reconciliation over historical issues that have regularly caused tensions between two otherwise close allies.

📢 14 października 2026 r. we Lwowie delegacja Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej spotkała się z przedstawicielami ukraińskiego Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej. Było to pierwsze bezpośrednie, robocze spotkanie szefów tych instytucji od 2018 r.

➡️ Stronie polskiej przewodniczył kierujący… pic.twitter.com/qHpZwLeCEa

— Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (@ipngovpl) October 14, 2026

News of the meeting was announced on social media by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which noted that it was “the first direct, working meeting between the heads of these institutions since 2018”.

The IPN is currently headed by its deputy president, Karol Polejowski, because Poland’s parliament has been unable to agree on a permanent new president. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINR) is led by Oleksandr Alfyorov.

“The first topic of discussion,” according to the IPN, was the planned reburial of 115 Polish soldiers recently exhumed in Lviv, where they died in 1939 defending the city (then part of Poland and known as Lwów) during the Nazi-German and Soviet invasions.

Polish and Ukrainian researchers have exhumed the remains of 115 Polish soldiers who died in 1939 defending Lviv – now in Ukraine but then part of Poland and known as Lwów – during the invasions by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at the start of WWII https://t.co/yQNeq2D54E

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 2, 2026

Their exhumation resulted from a diplomatic breakthrough last year between Warsaw and Kyiv that saw Ukraine lift a moratorium on exhumations that had been in place since 2017 in protest at the dismantling in Poland of a monument to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Ukraine has also allowed the exhumation on its territory of Polish victims of the Volhynia massacres, which were led by the UPA. Poland likewise recently granted permission for Ukraine to search for Ukrainian victims of a massacre led by the Polish Home Army in the village of Łasków (Laskiv in Ukrainian).

At this week’s meeting, the UINR gave an update on its work in Łasków, where it has uncovered the remains of 30 people.

The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance has found 30 human remains in a village in Poland where Polish partisans killed Ukrainian civilians in WW2

It thanked Poland for permission to search the site, calling it a step towards "true reconciliation" https://t.co/BeeEtl6gCa

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 15, 2026

The IPN and UINR also discussed planned exhumation work in the now-depopulated village of Huta Pieniacka (Huta Peniatska in Ukrainian), where the local Polish population was massacred in 1944 by a Nazi SS regiment mainly made up of Ukrainians.

There was also “willingness on both sides to restore cooperation in the field of historical scientific research”, said the IPN. “The possibility of undertaking joint educational initiatives was also discussed.” The two sides also agreed to hold another meeting in Warsaw, though no date has been set.

This week’s meeting comes after a period of tension over historical issues between not only Poland and Ukraine more broadly, but also the two countries’ remembrance institutes.

In February this year, the IPN criticised Alfyorov over an interview in which he initially called the Volhynia massacres “one of Poland’s state myths”, before later appearing to correct himself and saying it was “not a myth, but one of the key elements of the Polish grand narrative”.

By contrast, “for most Ukrainians, this is just a local episode of history”, added Alfyorov. Referring to Poland’s recognition of the massacres as a genocide – a term Ukraine rejects – he asked if Polish massacres of around 28,000 Ukrainians during the war should also be called a genocide.

In response, the IPN called Alfyorov’s remarks “outrageous” and declared that the Volhynia massacres were “not an ‘episode’, but rather one of the largest genocides against civilians in 20th-century Europe”. It also condemned Ukraine for honouring figures associated with the massacres.

The UINR, for its part, criticised a law proposed by Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki (a former head of the IPN), that would criminalise the promotion of ideologies associated with World War Two Ukrainian nationalist groups.

Ukraine has criticised a law proposed by Poland's president that would criminalise promotion of historical Ukrainian nationalist ideologies, equating them with Nazism and communism

It warns of "retaliatory measures" if the bill is passed https://t.co/TaX2Vj5z8v

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 2, 2025

In another sign of reconciliation, in May the UINR and Poland’s Mieroszewski Centre held a historical congress in Warsaw, bringing together more than 100 historians “to discuss complex issues of the shared past and explore common approaches to their interpretation”, in the words of the Ukrainian foreign ministry.

However, that same month, President Volodymyr Zelensky prompted a diplomatic crisis by approving the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the “heroes of the UPA”. That prompted Nawrocki to strip Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle.

Since then, both sides have made efforts to reach a diplomatic solution, including a pledge by Zelensky to “grant a substantial number of permits for search and exhumation work”.

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Main image credit: IPN/X