Police says a monument to the victims of a Second World War massacre in a western Ukrainian village has been blown up.

National Police in the Lviv region said in a statement on Tuesday that vandals destroyed a stone cross in Huta Penyatska commemorating Polish villagers who were massacred in 1944 by a Nazi unit mostly composed of Ukrainian volunteers. Up to 1,200 people are believed to have been killed there, according to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

Footage on Ukrainian media showed the ransacked memorial and two stone slabs bearing the names of the victims painted over with the colors of the Ukrainian flag and the colors of Ukrainian nationals.

Lviv police are investigating.