Bangladesh, July 13 -- Polish President-elect Karol Nawrocki has formally appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to allow a “full-scale” exhumation of Polish victims of the World War II-era Volyn massacre-a demand that revives a decades-old source of tension between the neighboring countries. Speaking on July 11 at a solemn ceremony commemorating the 82nd anniversary of the massacre, Nawrocki delivered an impassioned call for truth, historical justice, and the right to dignified burial for tens of thousands of ethnic Poles murdered by Ukrainian nationalist forces during the Nazi occupation.

The Volyn massacre refers to a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing waged between 1943 and 1945 in the regions of Volhynia and...