Poland Exhumes Bodies From 2010 Crash
Polish investigators have exhumed the remains of three of the 96 Poles killed in the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski because of flaws in the initial autopsies performed by Russian officials.
The need for the new autopsies has added to suspicions that the Russians were, at best, sloppy in their handling of the crash aftermath, and, at worst, trying to cover something up. Continue reading
Putin Showed His Weakness With Poland
The citizens’ awakening in Russia dates from the disputed State Duma elections on Dec. 4 and the first protest held on the following day on Chistiye Prudy. But to my mind, the first sign thatVladimir Putin‘s regime is tottering emerged 20 months earlier, on the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. The ceremony commemorating the 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals murdered by Stalin’s security forces and the 2010 plane crash that killed the Polish president and a number of government and military officials marked a rapprochement between Moscow and Warsaw. Continue reading
Stalin’s Grandson Sues Duma over Katyn Resolution
Accusations that Joseph Stalin ordered thousands of captured Polish officers executed without trial at Katyn in 1940 are a violation of the Russian Constitution and an illegal slander against the Soviet leader, a lawyer for Stalin’s grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili said on Tuesday. Continue reading
Medvedev to visit Poland
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will pay an official visit to Poland on December 6-7, the Kremlin said on Monday.
Medvedev will come to Poland at the invitation of his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski. Continue reading
Russia Admits Stalin Ordered 1940 Massacre of Poles
Russia’s parliament accepted Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s responsibility for the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners—a declaration that Poland’s leaders welcomed, cautiously, as a step toward justice for an atrocity that still poisons the two countries’ relations. Continue reading
Ukraine, Poland honor victims of Katyn massacre
The president of Poland and Ukraine’s prime minister joined victims’ relatives to honor thousands of Polish officers killed by the Soviet secret police 70 years ago in the Katyn massacre. Continue reading
The Curse of Katyn
It took more than half a century to get the shocking truth.
Generations of Poles had long laboured under the official misconception that the Nazis were responsible for the systematic annihilation of thousands of their finest citizens – professionals, academics, police officers and public servants in the Katyn forest. Continue reading
Closing the Circle on the Polish Airplane Crash
This news is now several days old, but for completeness’ sake, given previous discussions here, it seemed worth mentioning. The cockpit transcripts from the heartbreaking crash that killed so much of Poland’s leadership in April were released late last week, and they appear to confirm what seemed likely from the start. Continue reading
Polish experts want swift declassification of Katyn files
Poland hopes that an over 100-volume criminal dossier on the Katyn massacre will be declassified and these events will be legally qualified as a crime. Continue reading
Medvedev: Russia will continue opening Soviet repression archives
The public will receive broader access to documents addressing Soviet-era mass repression, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen in Copenhagen on April 28.
Continue reading
