State Commission approves exhumation research in several regions – UINP
The State Interdepartmental Commission for the Commemoration of Participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Victims of War and Political Repressions has made a decision to conduct exhumation research in several regions of Ukraine, reports the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP).
The Ukrainian Interdepartmental Commission responsible for commemorating anti-terrorist operation participants, war victims, and political repression victims has authorized exhumation research in multiple Ukrainian regions, according to the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP). This decision follows agreements made by the Ukrainian-Polish Working Group on issues of national remembrance.
The Commission has approved exhumation research in the former village of Huta Pieniacka, currently part of Pidkamin settlement's territorial hromada in Zolochiv district, Lviv region. Additionally, the exhumation of war-related burials from Uhly village, Sarny urban hromada in Sarny district, Rivne region, has been sanctioned for preserving Polish memory sites in Ukraine.
Moreover, permission for DNA sampling from remains buried between 1992-2015 in Ostrówki village's cemetery, currently in Rivne region's Kovel district, was granted. The exhumation research was also approved on the site of the Soviet Soldiers Memorial in Mlyniv settlement, Dubno district, Rivne region; in Borodianka settlement, Bucha district, Kyiv region; and in Kremenets and Volodymyr cities, Ternopil and Volyn regions, respectively.
In early May 2025, 42 remains were discovered during exhumation in the former village of Puźniki, Ternopil region, later reburied on September 6. A joint Ukrainian-Polish expedition conducted search and exhumation work in Lviv's Stari Zboishcha, discovering a mass burial of WW2 victims, which was reburied on September 14. Polisia conducted searches for possible UPA fighter burials in Jureczkowa village, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland, but found none.
Plans for 2026 search and exhumation activities were outlined by the Ukrainian-Polish Working Group on Historical Memory, including searches in Uhly (completed) and former Huta Pieniacka and Ostrówki villages, as well as in Poland's Sahryń and Łasków. Joint search operations in Uhly concluded on March 27, 2026, without finding mass burials.
On June 18, a mass grave with about 70 square meters was discovered during Huta Pieniacka's mass burial search, but exhumation was delayed until next year. In mid-June, a new phase of searching for remains of tragically deceased village residents from February 1945 was underway in the former village of Puźniki, Ternopil region. Research in Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka villages, currently in Volyn region's Kovel district, aimed at exhumation and reburial of remains from August 1943 was scheduled for July.
The Polish side had submitted a list of further search and exhumation locations in Ukraine by early August.
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