Polsk minister försäkrar: Byter inte sida i kriget

Poland–Ukraine relations revived on an international basis soon after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Various controversies from the shared history of the two countries' peoples occasionally resurface in Polish–Ukrainian relations, but they tend not to have a major influence on the bilateral relations of Poland and Ukraine.Ukraine and Poland are respectively, the second- and third-largest Slavic countries, after Russia. The two countries share a border of about 529 km (329 mi). Poland's 2003 acceptance of the 1985 Schengen Agreement created problems with Ukrainian border traffic. On July 1, 2009, an agreement on local border traffic between the two countries came into effect, which enables Ukrainian citizens living in border regions to cross the Polish frontier according to a liberalized procedure.Ukraine is a member of the Eastern Partnership, a European Union project initiated by Poland in 2009, which aims to provide an avenue for discussions of trade, economic strategy, travel agreements, and other issues between the EU and its Eastern European neighbours. Ukraine is the country with the largest number of Polish consulates. The two countries have a long shared history – some parts of western Ukraine (such as Lviv) formed part of the Polish state for several centuries and parts of eastern Poland once had large native Ukrainian populations; the demographics of the regions along the Polish-Ukrainian border were profoundly affected by the 1944 to 1946 population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine and actions such as the 1947 Operation Vistula in the aftermath of World War II. Poland supports Ukraine's European Union and NATO membership.