Russia outraged over monument removal in Poland
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
18.09.2015 13:28
Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna has defended the removal of a brass relief of USSR general Ivan Chernyakhovsky, which has been condemned by Russia.
The monument of the Red-Army general was removed on Thursday. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Waszczuk
“Neither the law, nor good relations have been violated,” said Minister Schetyna on Friday referring to the removal of the monument.
The decision to remove the patinaed image of the WWII general was taken to mark the anniversary of the massacre of Polish POWs by the NKVD in Bykivnia, Ukraine.
Chernyakhovsky was responsible for the arrest of several thousand Polish resistance Home Army soldiers in the Vilnius region (now Lithuania) and the death of many of them in Soviet camps, including Bykivnia. He was considered a hero in the USSR.
The Russian Foreign Ministry critisised the decision and called Polish Ambassador to Moscow, Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, to explain the decision.
The monument stood in the town of Pieniężno in northern Poland before it was taken down on Thursday.
“It is 17 September – the perfect opportunity to, in a minor way, commemorate the victims of Soviet aggression of 1939,” the mayor of Pieniężno said.
He added that the metal sculpture would first be stored in one of the town’s storage units and then handed over to Russian authorities.
Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz met her Ukrainian counterpart Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the Stalinist mass murder of Poles at the Bykivnia site. (rg/rk)
Source: PAP, TVN24