During the search work in Puźniki in the Tarnopolski region in the west of Ukraine, the Polish-Ukrainian expedition has so far found remains of more than 30 and exhumed more than 20 people," Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Andrij Najos said on Saturday.
“Our work is organized in specified a way that at the end of each day we receive reports. By Saturday, more than 30 remains were found. Over 20 people have already been exhumed. A reasonably large number of different artifacts, buttons, shoes, coins, crosses were found and taken”, he reported.
Puźniki is simply a erstwhile village in today's Tarnopolski region in the west of Ukraine, where Ukrainian nationalists murdered 50 to 120 Poles on the night of 12 to 13 February 1945. On 24 April there began the first exhumations since the Ukrainian side abolished in November 2024 the ban on the search and exhumation of remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts in Ukraine.
According to Najos, experts present on the site now find the sex of people buried in the cemetery in Puźniki. "There are indeed remains of both women and men. We know that the remains of respective children have been found, but we can't talk about the origin of their death due to the fact that these works are ongoing in the old cemetery. any victims of these tragic events were buried earlier and others later, so this is simply a question to experts," he stressed.
Deputy Minister Najos reported that the field work of the Polish-Ukrainian expedition in Puźniki is slow approaching the end. "We can say that we will finish field investigation in about a week or so. Anthropological studies will proceed and genetic material will be collected for DNA comparison analysis. The work is going very smoothly, both teams work together highly well. No incidents have been reported. All essential conditions were created for the appropriate operation of both expeditions, in fact a common Ukrainian-Polish expedition," he said.
Najos expects a joint study on them to be produced after the work has been completed. "This, of course, will be the subject of our (Polish-Ukrainian) negotiations, but specified a study would let us to depoliticise specified processes. due to the fact that we started these works precisely to depoliticize them, that is, to make conditions for experts to find the actual scale of tragedy and find the causes of death. Therefore, the (common) study can be an crucial subject and will address what unites the 2 friendly and neighbouring nations alternatively than what divides them," he said.
Najos expressed the supposition that after Puźniki there may be a search for the remains of Poles buried in another places in his country. "Perhaps, it is rather possible due to the fact that we will prepare (for subsequent actions) after the Puźniki, and give God, we will go through this stage, which is very crucial for Poles and Ukrainians," he said.
"We do not forget that the Ukrainian expedition will be ready to go to Poland and do the same work. Therefore, if we make a precedent in fresh history, open a fresh page, it will truly let us to decision this dialog not to the political level, but to the level of experts and historians, which should take place between normal, friendly, neighbouring countries" - he stressed in a telephone conversation with PAP.
The work coordinated by the Foundation "Freedom and Democracy" is attended by experts from the Pomeranian Medical University, the company "Vołyńskie antiquity" and the Institute of National Memory.
Exhumations in Puźniki are a continuation of the work carried out by the Foundation "Freedom and Democracy" from May to August 2023, completed with the discovery of a grave in which the remains of victims of the crime rest. In January 2025, on the basis of the results of the search, the Ukrainian authorities authorised the exhumation of the found remains. (PAP)
