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Envoy honours victims of 1940 massacre of Polish POWs by Soviets

10.04.2026 17:00
Poland's ambassador to Russia on Friday paid tribute to thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals who were killed by the Soviets more than eight decades ago in a series of mass executions known as the Katyn Massacre.
A Polish war cemetery in the Katyn Forest, near the city of Smolensk in western Russia.
A Polish war cemetery in the Katyn Forest, near the city of Smolensk in western Russia.Photo: PAP/Wojciech Pacewicz

Krzysztof Krajewski laid flowers and lit candles at a Polish war cemetery in the Katyn Forest, near the city of Smolensk in western Russia, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

The Polish embassy in Moscow said in a social media post that "the memory of Katyn is the foundation of Polish identity."

"We will not forget," it wrote ahead of the 86th anniversary of the World War II-era killings, adding that "as last year, the ceremonies were accompanied by attempts to disrupt them."

The post said "a group of ‘activists’ appeared near the cemetery, chanting hostile slogans in an attempt to undermine the dignity of the site and the historical truth about the crime."

Krajewski has previously said that monuments, plaques and crosses commemorating Polish victims of Soviet crimes are being removed from public spaces in Russia amid growing efforts to question the Soviet Union’s responsibility for the atrocities, the IAR news agency reported.

A series of commemorative events is scheduled in Poland during the next few days to honour the victims of the 1940 Katyn Massacre.

April 13 is observed as a national day of remembrance for the victims of the Soviet crime.

Historians estimate that nearly 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were killed in the spring of 1940 on orders from top Soviet authorities.

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish officers were deported to camps in the Soviet Union.

POWs from camps in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, as well as Poles held in prisons run by the Soviet NKVD secret police, were among those executed in April 1940.

Moscow denied responsibility for the Katyn Massacre for decades, and the subject remained taboo during the period when Poland was under Soviet control after World War II until 1989.

(gs)

Source: IAR, polskieradio24.pl