Russia is “trampling on the memory” of the victims of the Katyn Massacre by removing Polish flags from their cemetery, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman has claimed.
Attempts to remove a Polish flag from the Katyn Massacre memorial site in Russia are "absolutely unacceptable" and show "how far away Russia is today from civilisational standards," a Polish deputy foreign minister has said.
Poland has officially protested against the removal by the Russian authorities of Polish flags from the Katyn war cemetery, a presidential official has said.
On Friday, Smolensk mayor Andrei Borisov posted on social media a photo of the memorial site showing a Russian flag next to the empty flagpole.
A Warsaw court has issued an arrest warrant against a Russian air traffic controller who was on duty at the time when the Polish presidential plane crashed in Smolensk on April 10, 2010.
Activists from the western Russian city of Smolensk have petitioned the country's parliament, the Duma, to demolish a symbolic memorial site to the Katyn massacre and a cemetery for its victims, Russian daily Kommersant has reported.
A deputy justice minister has said that lack of access to the wreckage of the aircraft involved in the Smolensk air disaster, which claimed the lives of President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in 2010, could undermine the chances of an investigation.
Poland may file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights about the Smolensk air disaster, which claimed the lives of the Polish president and dozens of high-ranking officials, the head of an investigative body into the incident has said.
The 2010 Polish presidential plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, that killed 96 people including the president, was a result of "an act of unlawful interference", said Antoni Macierewicz, head of a special sub-committee investigating the cause of the air disaster.
No evidence has ever been produced to confirm claims that the 2010 Smolensk air disaster was not an accident, an opposition leader said on Monday.
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