Ukraine has criticised Polish plans to establish a remembrance day for Poles massacred by Ukrainians during the Second World War.

Poland’s parliament this week approved a new public holiday on July 11 to commemorate victims of a “genocide” committed by Ukrainian nationalist groups during the conflict.

The date marks what Poles call “Volhynian Bloody Sunday”, when a 1943 operation by Ukrainian death squads killed thousands of civilians in settlements across the Wolyn province, which is mostly now in Ukraine and known as Volyn.