Poland denies entry to Ukrainian historian
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland barred entry into the country for the Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Volodymyr Viatrovych, as reported by dziennik.pl.
A few days ago, the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry, Witold Waszczykowski announced that Poland had begun the procedure for imposing a ban on entry on an official who blocked the exhumation of Polish victims killed in Volhynia.
The Polish edition confirms that the ban was precisely for Viatrovych. However, since the list of non-grata persons is not public, the Ukrainian historian can learn about this only at the border.
Viatrovych himself does not make a big deal out of this. "I have been a persona non-grata in Russia for several years. Now, they say, I’ve got a ban on entering Poland. But I'm worried less about restriction of my own movement and more about the fact that democratic Poland spoke with one voice with authoritarian Russia," he wrote on Facebook.
Viatrovych became famous when he headed the archive of the Security Service of Ukraine under President Viktor Yushchenko. In 2014, he headed the Institute of National Remembrance. On assuming office, he identified his priorities: increasing the public's awareness on the history of Ukraine, providing comprehensive study of the stages of struggle for the restoration of Ukraine's statehood in the 20th century, and implementing the activities for memorialization of the participants in the national liberation struggle, the victims of famine (Holodomor) and political repressions.
In Poland, he earned a bad reputation because of his attitude towards the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Volyn tragedy.