Zelensky honored the unit tied to a massacre of Polish and Ukrainian civilians. Now he’s opening the archives on it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he will open Ukraine's intelligence archives on the Volhynia massacre, a move Meduza reports followed a meeting on relations with Poland. He also promised additional permits for search-and-exhumation work and, as Meduza tells it, further "solutions on the diplomatic front." The pledge comes after ties between the two countries deteriorated sharply when Zelensky granted an honorary title to a Special Operations unit named "North," invoking the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — whose fighters Poland ties to the killing of an estimated thirty thousand to sixty thousand Poles and twenty thousand to thirty thousand Ukrainians in 1943 and 1944. Poland has recognized that massacre as genocide since 2016, and its president recently stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, the country's highest honor.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton