Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released newly declassified documents detailing the massacre of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist militias during World War II in what is now western Ukraine.

The release comes as Poland marks its National Day of Remembrance on Saturday honoring the victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The ethnic cleansing campaign in the Volhynia region between 1943 and 1944 claimed the lives of at least 100,000 civilians, according to Polish estimates.

Poland recognizes these tragic events as a genocide. Ukraine, however, celebrates the UPA as freedom fighters, a stance that has led to a high-profile diplomatic dispute between the neighboring countries.

The Soviet archival files released by Russia describe the activities of the OUN unit led by Dmytro Kupyak, known by the nom de guerre Kley, who is believed to have been responsible for killing at least 200 Polish and Soviet nationals, as well as burning and looting eight villages.

On May 16, 1944, during a raid on the village of Kupche, Kley’s unit killed residents “solely because they were ethnic Poles,” the files say. On August 17 that year, the nationalists raided the village of Grabovo, where they locked nine women and children in a shed before burning them alive.

____
https://www.rt.com/russia/642877-ukraine-upa-massacres-poles-wwii/