President Medvedev reaffirmed Russia’s fundamental position of ensuring maximum transparency in investigating the causes of the accident.
Besides, during the meeting Russia’s President stressed that the declassification of the Katyn files will continue and handed over to his Polish counterpart 67 volumes of this criminal case numbered 159.
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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Dear Mr Acting President of Poland, Marshal of the Polish Sejm, I am glad to be meeting with you in Moscow. I want to thank you for taking part in the celebration of our common victory over Nazism.
We have an additional opportunity to meet, discuss current affairs and prepare for the future.
Last time we met in very sad circumstances, at the funeral of President Kaczynski, his wife and other Polish comrades who died in the plane crash near Smolensk. Our common task is to bring the investigation to fruition. Its conclusions should be circulated and communicated to the widest possible audience. In this regard, our governments and law enforcement agencies have been cooperating well.
We are meeting on the eve of the anniversary of the end of the war. But there are also the events that preceded the war, including the events at Katyn. During my visit to Krakow, I told you that I would be taking all the necessary measures and giving instructions for further work on the materials of the Katyn files, including criminal case number 159. I think that this is absolutely necessary. On this occasion I would like to give you the results of ongoing work, namely 67 volumes of criminal case number 159. Work on that criminal case, including the declassification of material at my direct orders, will continue.
ACTING PRESIDENT OF POLAND BRONISLAW KOMOROWSKI (as translated): Thank you very much, Mr President,
We are very thankful for what you have said and promptly done, exactly as we agreed. We are approaching this as the beginning of the further way forward on this road, in order to definitively disentangle the truth from the lies about Katyn. We also know, both you and I know, that the Katyn lie has been a stumbling block in relations between our two countries. I am fully confident that the truth about Katyn, as well as the fact that both Poland and Russia have survived totalitarian regimes, can represent a very good foundation for our future relations, the development of relations between our two countries.
It would be difficult to name two peoples who have suffered more from totalitarian regimes than the Russian and Polish. So thank you not only for the documents that you gave me, but also for your words of wisdom relating to the era of totalitarianism in our history.
In an interview, you said that you were the grandson of a soldier who fought during the Second World War. Every Russian, Russia as a nation and Russia as a people, should be proud of their victory in 1945. This is easy for me to say because I'm also the grandson and son of Polish soldiers. My grandfather began to fight in the Second World War on September 1, 1939 — for the Poles the war began then. And his fellow soldiers were killed in Katyn. For my father, a partisan fighter, World War II ended on May 9 near Dresden, where he was fighting shoulder to shoulder with Russian soldiers, maybe even with your grandfather.
Thank you.