Leaders from Kyiv, Warsaw Unveil Monument to Stalin Victims

Polish and Ukrainian soldiers march during a commemoration ceremony for the victims of Soviet-era repressions at the memorial near the village of Bykivnia, outside Kyiv, on September 21.

The presidents of Ukraine and Poland have unveiled a memorial dedicated to the victims of Stalinist-era repressions.

Presidents Viktor Yanukovych and Bronislaw Komorowski laid flowers at the monument, which is part of a commemorative site in Bykivnia outside the Ukrainian capital that contains the graves of some 120,000 Ukrainians, Poles, and others executed by the Soviet secret police before and during World War II.

The victims include several thousand of the estimated 22,000 Poles killed in the 1940 Katyn massacre.

Yanukovych said the two countries were fulfilling their duty toward "future generations" by jointly exposing the crimes of the Stalinist era.

Komorowsk said the Bykivnia site made it possible to feel "the unity of our Polish and Ukrainian fates."

Based on reporting by AP and Interfax