Former Polish Foreign Minister criticises Warsaw for alleged intention to blackmail Ukraine during its EU accession

Former Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz has criticised the current Polish government, accusing it of intending to create a conflict with Ukraine instead of unblocking the exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy. [The Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.]

Czaputowicz noted in his an op-ed for Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita that there are many signs that the Polish presidency of the EU in the first half of 2025 will be devoted to blackmailing Ukraine. 

As is known, Ukraine has made the restoration of the destroyed monument to Ukrainian soldiers on Mount Monastyr in Poland a condition for the exhumation of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy. However, the prevailing opinion in Poland is that the remains of Poles should first be found and buried in Volyn Oblast, and only then should the discussion on whether to mark the grave of Ukrainian soldiers with a plaque bearing the names of the 62 victims be revisited. 

Czaputowicz himself believes that these two things could be done simultaneously.

"The chances that the Ukrainians will agree to this sequence of actions are the same as the chances that Germany will pay us reparations in the amount calculated by [Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Arkadiusz Mularczyk's team. So, the point is not to catch the rabbit, but to chase it. The government has concluded that it is more profitable to create a conflict with Ukraine than to unblock the exhumation," Czaputowicz writes.

As a result, he noted, opponents of Ukraine's EU membership are now "rubbing their hands together".

"But what will we do if Ukraine does not succumb to our blackmail? Perhaps we will demand that the exhumations in Volyn be included in the act of surrender of Ukraine, along with the abandonment of Crimea and Donbas. But most importantly, we mustn’t restore the monument in Monastyr!" Czaputowicz noted sarcastically.

Recently, it became known that the Polish Foreign Ministry is supposedly planning to use Ukraine's European integration aspirations to put pressure on Kyiv in the coming months, in particular regarding the issue of exhumations of victims of the Volyn tragedy.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Teofil Bartoszewski said that the issue of exhumations of the victims of the Volyn tragedy would be considered as part of the opening of the first chapter of negotiations with Ukraine on EU accession.