The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end... I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce called for "concrete proposals from both sides" in order for Washington to "move forward" in peace negotiations.
"If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn't know what they are saying," one Western official told NBC News. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called Witkoff's approach "a very bad idea."
President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Andrzej Duda after commemorating the victims of the Volyn tragedy at the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Lutsk, Ukraine July 9, 2023. Illustrative purposes only. (Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ukraine "cannot dream of joining the European Union" without resolving the issue of the exhumation of Volyn massacre victims' remains on Ukrainian territory, the Polish Foreign Ministry's Undersecretary of State Pawel Jablonski said on Nov. 7.
"In my opinion, without a solution to this issue - and many Ukrainians are already aware of this - Ukraine cannot dream of joining the European Union," the official of the outgoing Polish government said in an interview with Radio ZET.
"Therefore, we will absolutely emphasize that without a solution to this issue, there will be no long-term reconciliation with Ukraine."
When asked directly whether the issue of exhumations would be a condition of Warsaw's backing for Kyiv's EU accession, Jablonski answered he does "not like talking about conditions" but added that cooperation would be difficult without resolving the problem.
In the spring and summer of 1943, members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the military branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), massacred thousands of Poles in Nazi-occupied Volyn, a region that used to be part of Poland and is now part of Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians were killed in retaliation.
Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy, director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, estimates that the number of Polish victims of the massacre varies from 60,000 to 90,000.
The number of Ukrainians killed by Poles in the 1940s is estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000, including between 2,000 and 3,000 in Volyn, according to Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka.
Since 2016, July 11, a pivotal day in the massacre, sometimes called "Bloody Sunday," has been recognized by Poland as the National Day of Remembrance of Genocide Victims. Ukraine denies the term "genocide" to describe the Volyn massacre.
President Volodymyr Zelensky promised in 2019 to lift the Ukrainian moratorium on the exhumation of Volyn victims, imposed in reaction to cases of destruction of UPA memorials in Poland.
Poland's head of state, Andrzej Duda, said in August that obtaining permission for the exhumations plays a crucial role in Polish-Ukrainian relations.
Daria Shulzhenko
