Poland protests Russia's removal of crosses from cemetery of Polish victims of Soviet massacres

Poland has condemned the removal of Polish military symbols from a cemetery in Russia dedicated to Poles murdered during World War Two by the Soviet Union.

The Polish foreign ministry has demanded the restoration of the symbols, which they note were removed on the orders of Russian state prosecutors as part of Moscow's attempts to promote “historical lies” about the war.

On Sunday, reports first emerged that two metal symbols – the Virtuti Militari cross and September 1939 Campaign cross – had disappeared from the Polish war cemetery in Mednoye, Russia, which holds the remains of around 6,300 Polish officers killed in 1940 as part of the Katyn massacres .

In total, around 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia – captured by the Soviets after they invaded Poland alongside Nazi Germany in September 1939 – were massacred. However, the Soviet Union denied responsibility for decades, and in recent years there have been renewed efforts in Russia to obscure the crime.

Today, Sikorski announced that the Polish embassy in Moscow and the state Office for Veterans had confirmed that, “unfortunately, our monument to murdered Polish prisoners of war in Mednoye has been vandalized.”

However, “this was not done by vandals”, noted the foreign minister. “It was done by the authorities of the cemetery complex on the orders of the local prosecutor's office, and therefore on the orders of the Russian state.”

“We will defend these crosses,” declared Sikorski, “because we do not accept Russian historical lies.”

The Polish foreign ministry released a further statement in which it said that Russian prosecutors had ordered the crosses to be removed because they are “inconsistent with the federal law 'On Commemoration of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945′”.

That law promulgates the Russian narrative that the war began in 1941, when the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany. It whitewashes over the fact that Moscow had previously been allied with Berlin, and that the two had invaded Poland in league with one another in September 1939.

The ministry wrote that the actions in Mednoye were “a typical Russian attempt to distort the historical fact that, on 17 September 1939, Stalinist Russia, together with Hitler, attacked Poland.”

The ministry also wrote that they “interpret this outrageous provocation as an attempt to interfere in the Polish presidential elections”, though without explaining this claim any further. The first round of the elections was held last Sunday, with the second-round run-off set to take place on 1 June.

In his statement, Sikorski expressed surprise that Poland's state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) appeared not to have reacted to the situation in Mednoye. The head of the IPN, Karol Nawrocki , is the opposition's presidential candidate.

“We demand that the Russian side immediately restore the cemetery to its original state,” wrote the foreign ministry, adding: “We demand that the Institute of National Remembrance react and take action in this matter.”

In response, a spokesman for the IPN, Rafał Leśkiewicz, noted that “the Polish government is responsible for the care of the war cemetery in Miednoje”, not the IPN.

“Of course, we strongly protest against such actions by Russian,” he continued. “[But] directing expectations towards the IPN, knowing fully well that this is the competence of the Polish government, is simply a disgusting action of a political nature, related exclusively to the current presidential campaign.”

In 2022, Poland similarly lodged a protest against the removal of Polish flags from the Mednoye and another cemetery in Russia that holds the remains of thousands of further victims of the Katyn massacres.

Last year, Poland's foreign ministry published a statement correcting a number of false and revisionist statements that Putin has regularly tells about World War Two history.

Warsaw has also accused Russia of being behind a campaign of sabotage carried out in Poland, including a series of arson attacks . In response, Poland has announced the closure of two Russian consulates, including one earlier this month .

Sikorski today suggested that the latest consulate closure may have been a factor behind the action taken in Mednoye, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Main image credit: Общество Memorial/Facebook