Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has vowed to use his country’s presidency of the European Union to push forward with Ukraine’s bid for membership.
Standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Warsaw, Mr Tusk said: “We will break the standstill we have in this issue.
“We will accelerate the accession process.”
Poland now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, a 27-member bloc that Ukraine aspires to join, and Warsaw will have the influence to put the issue high on the agenda for the next half year.
Mr Zelensky was visiting Poland after the two countries reached an agreement on a long-standing source of tensions between them: the exhumation of Polish victims of Second World War-era massacres by Ukrainian nationalists.
The visit by Mr Zelensky, who arrived in Warsaw on Wednesday morning, came just days after Mr Tusk announced progress on starting exhumations.
Although Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most stalwart supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly three years ago, the issue of the Polish victims lying in mass graves in Ukrainian soil eight decades after they were brutally killed has left a festering bitterness among many Poles.
Mr Tusk, in power for more than a year, faces domestic pressure to show progress on an issue of continued importance to many people in Poland.
The issue of Polish massacre victims during the war is a source of tension between the two countries (AP)
It is particularly important as his party’s candidate in a presidential election in May is expected to face a strong challenge from a nationalist opposition candidate.
A pro-EU centrist, Mr Tusk has been working for some time to embrace an inclusive form of patriotism — part of an effort to prevent nationalist conservatives from presenting themselves as Poland’s leading advocates of the country’s interests.
The issue dates back to 1943-44, when Europe was at war. Ukrainian nationalists massacred about 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and other regions that were then in eastern Poland, then under Nazi German occupation, and which are now part of Ukraine.
Entire villages were burned down and their inhabitants killed by the nationalists and their helpers who were seeking to establish an independent Ukraine state. Poland considers the events a genocide and has been asking Ukraine to let them exhume the victims to give them proper burials.
An estimated 15,000 Ukrainians were killed in retaliation.
Poland has been a steadfast supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia (AP)
The issue is sensitive for Ukraine because some of the Second World War-era Ukrainian nationalists are today regarded as national heroes because of their struggle for Ukraine’s statehood.
Ukraine, however, faces its own pressure to act because it needs to maintain Polish support as it fights a war that has dragged on for nearly three years.
Kyiv also has something to gain from allowing the exhumations.
“Finally a breakthrough. There is a decision on the first exhumations of Polish victims of the UPA,” Mr Tusk had posted on X on Friday, referring to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
“I thank the ministers of culture of Poland and Ukraine for their good cooperation. We are waiting for further decisions.”
A non-governmental organisation, the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, said on Monday that it would begin exhumation work on victims in Ukraine in April.
As the two sides have worked to resolve the issue, the chairman of Ukraine’s parliament in May 2023 offered words of reconciliation in the Polish parliament.
“Human life has equal value, regardless of nationality, race, sex or religion,” Ruslan Stefanchuk told Polish legislators at the time.
“With this awareness we will cooperate with you, dear Polish friends, and we will accept the truth regardless of how uncompromising it may be.”