Warsaw Expresses Anger After Ukrainian Official Denies Volhynia Massacre
The Volhynia Massacre refers to the events of 1943–1945, when members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a group that cooperated with Nazi Germany, carried out large-scale killings of ethnic Poles in areas that are now part of western Ukraine.
In an interview with Ukrainskaya Pravda, Aleksandr Alferov, head of Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance, characterized the massacre as a Polish “state-building myth.” He described the violence as a limited historical episode and questioned the casualty figures cited by Poland, claiming they relied primarily on oral accounts rather than documented evidence.
Alferov previously served as a spokesperson for the Azov unit between 2014 and 2015 and was appointed to his current role in July 2025.
Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance strongly rejected Alferov’s remarks, calling them unacceptable. The institute stated that the massacre is well-documented and argued that the killing of more than 100,000 Polish civilians — including many women, children, and elderly people — represents one of the largest atrocities against civilians in twentieth-century Europe.
The Polish body also expressed concern over what it sees as the glorification of the UPA and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in contemporary Ukraine, noting that some of their leaders are regarded as national heroes.
The dispute has complicated relations between Warsaw and Kiev, despite Poland being one of Ukraine’s key supporters in its conflict with Russia. The historical controversy has also attracted criticism from Israel, while Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine’s leadership of rehabilitating or minimizing the role of wartime nationalist groups that collaborated with Nazi Germany.
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