Strategic partners Poland and Ukraine spar over painful past

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Officials in Poland and Ukraine, staunch strategic partners, have unexpectedly exchanged bitter remarks regarding a painful mutual past that includes mass murder. This year is the 80th anniversary of the massacres of tens of thousands of Poles by Ukrainians that Poland calls genocide. Seeking to calm emotions, an aide to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Monday that the Poles only wanted respect for the victims and the truth about the events of 1943-44 in what was then eastern Poland and is now Ukraine. The spat began last week when the foreign ministry spokesman said Poland was expecting an apology from Ukraine. The Ukrainian ambassador hit back, saying any suggestion as to what Kyiv should do was “unacceptable.”