Officials in Kyiv branded Karol Nawrocki’s comments “biased and manipulative” and said that the countries are engaged in a “constructive dialogue” around the exhumation of victims.
On Wednesday, Nawrocki—who is running for the presidency independently but with the backing of the right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party—said that a “country that cannot answer for a very brutal crime against 120,000 of its neighbors cannot be part of international alliances.”
“Today, I do not see Ukraine in either structure, neither in the European Union nor in NATO, until those important civilizational issues for Poles are resolved,” he told private broadcaster Polsat News.
The Volhynia Massacre of 1943-44 is viewed in Poland as an act of genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists, during which an estimated 100,000 Polish men, women and children were killed in a region that is now part of western Ukraine.
Poland has long campaigned for its investigators to be granted full access to exhume massacre victims in Ukraine, and the issue has remained a point of contention between Kyiv and Warsaw.
Nawrocki, tipped as the main challenger to liberal frontrunner Rafał Trzaskowski in May’s election, is head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body tasked with documenting crimes against the Polish people.
‘Biased and manipulative’
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry hit back, calling Nawrocki’s comments “biased and manipulative.”
“Such statements suggest that the Polish politician is prioritizing short-term political gain over the strategic security interests of his own country, the good-neighbourly relations between Ukraine and Poland, and the shared values of freedom, democracy, and justice,” officials said.
“Regardless of the statements made by this Polish politician, the reality is that Ukraine is already de facto—and will become de jure, part of the Euro-Atlantic family of nations and of the common European security architecture.”
They added that Nawrocki’s comments boosted Russian efforts to “undermine Ukrainian-Polish friendship and mutual understanding.”
“It is unacceptable to make statements that support these efforts,” the statement added.
‘Honoring the memory of Poles’
The foreign ministry also drew attention to the fact that the Ukrainian and Polish sides are already engaged in a “constructive dialogue” on the subject of exhumation, adding: “This work is aimed at honoring the memory of Ukrainians in Poland and Poles in Ukraine in a dignified manner.”
In November 2024, Ukraine approved search and exhumation work on Ukrainian territory by Polish state institutions and private entities in cooperation with relevant Ukrainian institutions.
Nawrocki, however, described the agreement as an “unnecessary outburst by the head of Polish diplomacy,” accusing Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski of leveraging it to further his own presidential campaign.
At the time, Sikorski was looking to secure the centrist Civic Coalition party’s nomination for the presidency but
lost out to Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski in an internal election.
