Poland has granted Ukraine a permit to carry out work in the village of Laskow in the Chelm region, at the suspected burial site of Ukrainians killed in March 1944, First Deputy Culture Minister Ivan Verbytsky said.
"Poland has granted a permit for a Ukrainian expedition to conduct search work in the village of Laskow in the Chelm region, at the suspected burial site of Ukrainian civilian residents killed in March 1944," Verbytsky wrote on Facebook.
The permit was issued to the Dolia memorial search center, and the work will be carried out on behalf of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP), he said.
He said the permit is the result of agreements reached by the Ukrainian-Polish working group on dignified burials, which operates on the initiative of both countries’ culture ministries.
As previously reported, the remains of 42 people were found in early May 2025 at an exhumation site in the former village of Puzhnyky in Ternopil region. The bodies were reburied on Sept 6.
A joint Ukrainian-Polish expedition also carried out search and exhumation work in Lviv (Stari Zboishcha), uncovering a mass grave of World War II victims. The remains of fallen Polish Army soldiers were reburied in Mostyska, Lviv region, on Nov 14, 2025.
In addition, search work took place in late September 2025 at a suspected burial site of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fighters in the village of Jureczkowa in Poland’s Podkarpackie Voivodeship, though no graves were found there.
In mid-December 2025, the Ukrainian-Polish working group on historical memory set out plans for search and exhumation work in 2026, including searches and exhumations on the Ukrainian side in Uhly (completed), as well as in the former villages of Huta Pieniacka and Ostrivky, while similar work in Poland was planned in Sahryn and Laskow.
Search work in the village of Uhly in Rivne region, carried out jointly by the Ukrainian-Polish expedition, concluded on March 27, 2026, with no mass graves found.
Search work at the site of a mass grave of victims of the 1944 events in the village of Huta Pieniacka, Lviv region, concluded on June 18, uncovering a mass grave covering about 70 square meters, though exhumation of those buried there has been postponed to next year.
In late June, a new stage of searches began for the remains of residents of the former village of Puzhnyky (now within the village of Sadove, Koropets settlement community, Chortkiv district, Ternopil region) who died tragically in February 1945.
In July, research was to be carried out in the former villages of Ostrivky and Volya Ostrovetska (now within the Rivne rural community, Kovel district, Volyn region) aimed at exhuming and reburying the remains of residents of those villages who died in August 1943. During the exhumation work, the remains of 48 people were found in the former village of Volya Ostrovetska, and the remains of 6 people were found in the former village of Ostrivky. The remains of 55 former residents of Ostrivky and Volya Ostrovetska were reburied in Volyn region in late August.
In early August, the Polish side handed over a list of sites for further search and exhumation work in Ukraine.
On Aug 25, search and exhumation work began at Holoskivske Cemetery in Lviv to locate the remains of Polish soldiers killed in 1939.
