The Second Katyn Massacre ?

Several media reports indicate that Moscow tried to do everything possible to prevent the Polish President Lech Kaczynski to visit Katyn. Diplomatic scandals broke more than once on this occasion.

Some historical facts are interesting in this regard.

On September 30, 1939, a Polish army general in London exile, Sikorski, became the prime minister of the Polish exile government (and remained on this post until the death in 1943).

After the discovery by the Germans mass graves of Polish officers in , who were killed by the Russians in a camp for war prisoners, Sikorski quarreled with Moscow. In April 1943, relations with the Polish government in exile were formally broken by Stalin's government after Sikorski demanded investigation into the Katyn massacre.

Sikorsky charged the Soviet Union with a war crime and demanded that Churchill breaks relations with the USSR. A few weeks later, General Wladyslaw Sikorski and his daughter Sophia died in a plane crash on July 4, 1943, near Gibraltar.

In November 2008, his body was exhumed and tested by Polish experts to confirm that the Soviet secret police had been involved in his death.

We would like to mention thereupon that the Polish President Lech Kaczynski was one of the Polish leaders most hated by Moscow. Indeed, the Kremlin had reasons to hate Kaczynski. Here are some facts:

The city council of Warsaw under the leadership of then-mayor of the Polish capital Kaczynski renamed one of the largest squares in Warsaw after the first Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev

The Kaczynski's election campaign was based on slogans of national revival and historical responsibility of Russia for crimes against Poland.

On Nov. 15, 2006, Kaczynski offered to the EU to impose sanctions against Russia if Moscow refuses to lift ban on the import of Polish meat and agricultural products.

Poland vetoed talks on cooperation between the European Union and Russia, which were to begin at the EU-Russia summit on November 24.

During the war in South Ossetia in August 2008, Kaczynski announced his full support for Georgia.

After the Russian war against Georgia, Poland accepted the US proposal to deploy a missile defense system (interceptor missiles) on its territory.

At Kaczynski's initiative Poland was going to free Europe from Russian gas dependence with an increased production of its own shale gas. In this case, Poland could become the largest European supplier of this type of fuel.

It is to be mentioned that Lech Kaczynski said that one of the goals of the Russian aggression against Georgia was an attempt to prevent Europe to get rid of the gas dependence from Moscow. Kaczynski has also actively lobbied for Georgia's joining the NATO.

Many ordinary people in the world doubt that the crash was accidental. In a guestbook of Polish Radio English Service a Belarus resident writes:

"The signs appear more and more worrying that the Russians were involved. From the Nazi-Russian pact and Katyn to the recent Russian and Belarusian war games near the Polish border, Russia has always considered Poland its own territory, lost in a time of weakness much as China threatens all over democratic Taiwan.

The difference is that Russia shows no compunction about murdering its citizens abroad and backing its threats with violence (vide Georgia) and economic measures (closing oil pipelines). A Russian plane recently "repaired" in a Russian factory? If it is simply a coincidence, through its actions Russia immediately comes under suspicion.

My condolences to our Polish allies who have always supported us since breaking free from Russian control".

It is to be mentioned that according to the Russian media, "the Kaczynski's presidential plane was fully overhauled in December, the general director of the Aviakor aviation maintenance plant in Samara, Russia, told the Rossiya-24 TV. The plant repaired the plane's three engines, installed new electronic and navigation equipment and updated the interior", Alexei Gusev said.

In their turn, the Russian authorities actively promote the version of a "bad weather", which became the "cause of the accident". Moscow claims a dense fog covered the military airfield near Smolensk. The fog, for some reason, did not prevent eye-witnesses to see quite clearly the details of the aircraft flight.

"The plane tilted to the left before crashing, witness Slawomir Sliwinski told the state news channel Rossiya-24. He said there were two loud explosions when the aircraft hit the ground and burst into flames", AP reports.

Meanwhile, the Polish media does not exclude FSB's involvement in the crash. A possibility of a terror attack by the FSB is also being considered.

In particular, a Polish expert on the TV channel POLSAT called improbable the Russian explanation that the crash of the Polish plane was caused by bad weather, a pilot's error, etc.

Polish flags in Poland have been lowered to half-mast. Under the Poland's constitution, the leader of the lower house of Parliament, who is now the acting president, has 14 days to announce new elections to be held within 60 days.

According to the experts, there are some "strange aspects" in this tragedy. The Polish side asserts that 88 people flew from Poland, but the number of the dead amounted to 132 people, according to initial Russian reports.

All passengers died, as Russian media have reported an hour after the tragedy, although in similar accidents, 80 percent of passengers usually survive. The plane fell to earth only from the height of 15 meters. There were no fires, no fuel, but security was increased, etc. The plane could have landed on other airfield, but it didn't.

Polish media outlets seriously doubt the explanation from the Russian side that the plane was reportedly going to land in a fourth attempt. According to Russian media outlets, the press service of the Smolensk Region told that the airport air control allegedly offered the Polish pilot to land in Minsk, 200 km from Smolensk, but the pilot reportedly refused.

"Skilled pilots seldom decide to land the plane in a fourth attempt, usually, if the second attempt fails, pilots land in an alternate airport", said one of Polish pilots on Polish T`V, noting that the best pilots of the country fly the president's plane.

The Polish side noted that the tragedy of this magnitude and level occurred for the first time in the world. A large number of top officials of Poland died.

Ukrainian media outlets do not exclude that Kaczynski's plane was lured into a trap.

The reason remains unclear why the pilots of Tu-154 with top officials of the Republic of Poland on board decided to use for landing a poorly adapted military airfield "North" near the town of Pechersk in Smolensk Region, rather than to land at the airport of Smolensk, the Ukrainian RUpor agency reports.

The agency notes that the existence of a military airport on the territory of Russia is a state secret and without the intervention of the military department dispatcher civil service can not recommend landing to foreign government planes. Especially, since, as noted by the TV channel Russia 24, prior to this, the airport denied landing for a Russian military aircraft.

If an intervention of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (and perhaps, actually the military intelligence GRU) is proved, it could be possible to speculate on the political component of the catastrophe.

Experts repeatedly mentioned a sharply increased role of the Russian military intelligence GRU after the Medvedev's rise to power.