A Polish-Ukrainian archaeological team has uncovered the remains of Polish WWII soldiers among about 950 victims of Soviet repressions in Volodymyr-Volynsky, western Ukraine.

Photo: sxc.hu

The remains were found on the premises of a former NKVD (Soviet secret police) prison that functioned intermittently between 1939 and 1956.

Up until the outbreak of the Second World War in August 1939, Volodymyr-Volynsky (Wlodzimierz Wołyński) had been within Poland's borders.

Alexei Zlatogorski, head of the Ukrainian branch of the archaeological team, believes the victims were killed between 1940 and 1941, before Hitler turned on his Moscow ally and invaded Soviet-occupied territory.

“So far, we have found the remains of about 950 people,” he told the Rzeczpospolita daily.

“These include Polish soldiers, but also civilians,” he clarified.

Polish archaeologist Dr Dominika Sieminska described the remains as being in “very bad condition,” noting that they had been covered with lime.

The Rzeczpospolita paper referred the find as a “new Katyn”, in an allusion to the massacre of over 20,000 Polish officers by the NKVD in 1940 at various points across the Soviet Union, including the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

The exhumations are scheduled to continue for several more weeks. (nh)



