The upcoming visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Katyn, where thousands of Polish POWs were massacred by Soviet forces in WWII, demonstrates a "new trend in Russia's approach to history," a Polish politician said on Monday.
Putin will visit the western Russian location on April 7 to take part in a memorial service marking the Katyn massacre. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is also expected to attend the ceremony, while Polish President Lech Kaczynski is to travel to Katyn on April 10.
"The very fact that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will visit Katyn and honor the memory of the victims of the Katyn tragedy is an event of huge importance," Andrzej Przewoznik, who heads Poland's council for the protection of the memory of World War Two victims and veterans, said.
Over 20,000 Polish officers, police and civilians taken prisoner during the 1939 partitioning of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were killed in the Katyn forest in 1940, as well as in prisons and other locations, by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB.
Read more: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100405/158446299.html
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