Culture Ministry Confirms Search Operations To Begin In Uhli Village, Rivne Region

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) This was reported by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, according to Ukrinform.

“We are consistently working to establish the truth about the tragic chapters of the shared history of Ukrainians and Poles. The search operations in Uhli are a step toward properly honoring the memory of the victims and fostering mutual trust between our peoples,” said Deputy Minister of Culture Ivan Verbytskyi.

It is noted that in 2025, the Ministry of Culture granted permission for this work to the Lviv Regional Council's municipal enterprise“Dolia,” which is responsible for locating the graves of participants in the national liberation struggle and victims of wars, deportations, and political repression. The request to conduct such work in the village of Uhli was initiated by Karolina Romanowska, chair of the“Polish-Ukrainian Reconciliation” association.

The expedition was organized in partnership with the Pomeranian Medical University (Republic of Poland).

The village of Uhli, which today is located within the territory of the Sarny municipal community in the Sarny district of the Rivne region, belonged during the 1920s and 1930s to the Stepan commune of the Kostopil county in the Volhynian Voivodeship of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where members of the Polish ethnic group lived in a compact community at that time.

On May 12, 1943, some of the village's residents, both Poles and Ukrainians, were killed during an armed attack, and their remains were likely buried near the local Evangelical cemetery, where, in the early 20th century, residents of nearby German settlements were buried. The number of victims and the circumstances of these tragic events in Uhli have not yet been definitively established. The search efforts aim to locate the possible burial site, which will allow for the subsequent exhumation of the remains, their identification, and a dignified reburial. This, in particular, underscores the urgency of these search efforts, followed by exhumation, identification, and a dignified reburial of the recovered remains.

Within the village of Uhli, there is a wooden cross with a stone plaque. The plaque bears the inscription:“In memory of the Poles, former residents of the village of Uhli” in Ukrainian and Polish.

As reported by Ukrinform, the day before, the head of the Polish team, Professor Andrzej Ossowski, a geneticist from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, told Ukrinfor that on March 23 in Uhli, a Ukrainian-Polish team would begin search operations at the burial site of the village's residents-Poles and Ukrainians who tragically perished during World War II.

In December 2025, a reconnaissance trip took place in the villag of Uhli in the Rivne region with the participation of specialists from the Ukrainian and Polish sides to discuss further research in March-April 2026.

Last October, Ukraine's Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar stated that Kyiv had granted Warsaw permission to conduct search and exhumation work in the village of Uhli in the Rivne region.

Read also: Poland may begin search operations in Ukraine as early as end of March, says Alfyorov

Last September, a Ukrainian expedition consisting of researchers from the“Dolia” Memorial and Search Center in Lviv conducted search and exhumation work in the village of Yurechkove in Poland's Podkarpackie Voivodeship.

On the grounds of a former cemetery in the Zboishche district of Lviv, a Ukrainian-Polish expedition conducted search and exhumation work to reburial the remains of Polish Army soldiers.

In the Ternopil region, the remains found in Puzhnyky during search and exhumation work were reburied.

Photo: gov, archive

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