Comment by the Information and Press Department on the desecration of a memorial to Soviet soldiers in Warsaw

A few days ago, unidentified vandals desecrated the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw, where Soviet soldiers who were killed in battles for Poland’s liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944-1945 rest. The roots of this criminal act are clear.

Warsaw has been pushing for a drastic revision of the assessments of key historic events of the 20th century, above all, the Second World War. Consequently, the role of the Red Army in liberating Europe and Poland itself from fascism is being denied, an offensive has been launched on our war memorial heritage, and the dismantlement of Soviet/Russian monuments is being openly encouraged. Such uncivilised methods are being used in the so-called “fight against the symbols of communist domination,” while at the same time a caring attitude towards graves is being emphasised.

The incident with the war memorial in Warsaw is further proof of the inferiority of this policy, which no ideological references, nor the so-called selective approach, can justify. Having picked up the anti-Russian signal, criminals no longer differentiate between memorials and burial sites, desecrate the memory of our heroes and, as experience shows, feel their own impunity.

We are outraged with the ongoing “war” in Poland against our memorial sites. We expect the Warsaw authorities to publicly condemn the incident at the Soviet Military Cemetery. Otherwise, the situation in this field will continue to deteriorate, and it might devastate the general state of Russian-Polish relations.

The Russian Embassy in Warsaw has given Poland a note of protest, demanding to remove the aftermath of the incident and to find and punish the culprits. Moscow, for its part, will take the necessary steps through diplomatic channels.