PRESIDENTS OF RUSSIA AND POLAND HONOURED MEMORY OF PLANE CRASH-VICTIMS

In the Smolensk Tvardovsky regional library, a working meeting was held by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and President of Poland Bronislav Komorowski, where the leaders of the two countries agreed on forming an interstate group to project a memorial at the crash site of the plane of Poland’s President LechKaczynski, who was among 96 people killed in the catastrophe on April 10, 2010.

‘We have agreed on forming a special interstate group aiming to draw up a project of that monument. Mr. President and I will provide the necessary support’, Dmitry Medvedevsaid. Bronislav Komorowski also placed a high emphasis on the fact that the text ought to be approved by both parties and written in the Polish and the Russian languages.

Talking to the President of Poland, Dmitry Medvedev announced the official viewpoint of the Russian authorities on the tragic events of the spring of 1940. ‘The responsibility for those crimes lies with the leaders of the Soviet Union of those years. The Russian state insists on considering the attempts to give other versions ungrounded. They are based on neither historical facts, nor documents, nor ethical reasons’, claimed Dmitry Medvedev. He also assured of the willingness of Russia to be in close partnership with Poland.

As soon as the meeting was over, the leaders of the two countries laid wreaths on the crash site and then visited the Memorial complex ‘Katyn’.