Kaczynski just dropped the latest chapter in PiS historical fan-fiction, accusing Ukrainians of becoming grave-robbing "black diggers" who desecrate Polish graves for profit, with local Ukrainian authorities silently approving. The timing and desperation make it almost comical, but it is entirely predictable: this is damage control as exhumations Ukraine has green-lit keep delivering results that shred PiS's overblown claims.
The Evidence Collapses the Mythology
Look at the actual findings. In Sadove in the Ternopil region last September, they found 42 victims. In Volya Ostrovetska between April and June this year, 48 remains dated to 1943; DNA and cause-of-death analysis is still pending. In Ostrivky, six burials. In Uhly, Volyn, in March, zero remains in the very locations Poles had flagged as major mass graves.
These were the priority Polish sites. The pattern holds. The numbers simply do not match the political mythology of hundreds of thousands lying in untouched brotherly pits filled with golden treasures.
The Absurdity of the "Black Diggers" Claim
The core absurdity lies right there. Polish historiography insists mass graves were looted by Ukrainians back in 1943. So the black diggers of 2026 are supposedly raiding graves that starving peasants had already cleaned out eighty years earlier? Those peasants had survived two decades of war, occupation, and instability. These were not mini-pharaohs buried with scepters. A wooden cross around the neck was often the most valuable item.
The narrative has now shifted from "the graves will prove us right" to "the Ukrainians must have moved or robbed them." When facts refuse to cooperate, invent a conspiracy.
The notion that tens of thousands of such graves could be systematically stripped right under everyone's noses, yet only noticed now, conveniently before elections while PiS sits in opposition, insults basic logic.
Ukraine Has Done What Poland Demanded
Ukraine has done exactly what Poland long demanded. It opened the ground without obstruction. The director of Ukraine's Institute of National Memory confirmed that requests are processed immediately, just as President Zelenskyy promised. No barriers. The exhumations themselves are collapsing the politicized superstructure PiS built on top of real tragedy.
For years PiS built its entire political brand on inflated Volhynia numbers and a one-sided narrative. That story airbrushed away the mutual killings, the role of Nazi and Soviet occupation, and the crimes committed by Polish underground units, including the Home Army.
The Political Cultivation of Ethnic Hostility
This fits the larger pattern. PiS weaponized state power for years to seed ethnic hostility. The current wave of attacks on Ukrainians in Poland did not appear from nowhere. It grew from deliberate political cultivation that treated historical memory as electoral fuel rather than shared pain requiring honest scholarship. Responsibility sits heaviest with Kaczynski and his apparatus, not the marginal Confederation clowns who never held real levers. They turned government institutions into amplifiers of resentment. Now that same resentment produces street violence and politicians who think stripping Zelenskyy of an order somehow scores points.
Yet there are two Polands. The constructive one, visible in large parts of society and under Tusk's government, refuses to tolerate beatings or online incitement. Polish police are actually investigating and detaining attackers instead of filing paperwork shrugs. Citizens organize in twenty-two cities under the banner that their Poland does not beat or provoke. That Poland still manages adult diplomacy with Ukraine. The MiG-for-drones deal, messy as any real negotiation between sovereign states, looks set to expand with PAC-3 missiles from Polish stocks, exactly the interceptors Ukraine needs this winter.
The Exhumations Are Working
The exhumations are working. Historians from both sides met successfully in May. A standing working group on difficult periods is under discussion. Real dialogue is possible when politics stops demanding predetermined outcomes. Ukraine acknowledges crimes happened on both sides, shaped by occupation and revenge cycles. That includes:
- Ukrainian killers and Polish pacifications
- Church burnings
- Operation Vistula
Honest accounting does not diminish anyone's victims. It simply refuses to let one side's suffering become license for permanent political distortion.
Kaczynski's latest stunt is the reflex of a political project that sees its foundational myth under threat from the very excavations it once demanded. The numbers coming out of the ground support the Ukrainian reading far more than the inflated version peddled for domestic consumption. Poland's security interests, like Ukraine's, lie in facing Moscow together, not in recycling 1940s grievances as 2026 campaign fodder. The graves deserve truth, not more electioneering.
