More than 80 years after the massacre of more than 21,000 Poles near Katyn by the Soviet secret police, Polish President Andrzej Duda wants to seek justice before international justice. “Genocide does not expire. Therefore, I will request that this case come before international courts,” Duda said in a speech yesterday. He will take appropriate steps “in the near future”. Duda did not say which court Poland wants to appeal to.
In his speech, Duda also referred to alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine. “Forgotten, unpunished war crimes and crimes against humanity fuel a sense of impunity among perpetrators,” he said. “It’s like giving the green light to their successors and supporters.” This is reflected today in “Russia’s brutal aggression against independent and democratic Ukraine.”
After the Red Army invaded Poland in September 1939, more than 21,000 Poles – mostly officers, but also intellectuals and church representatives – were arrested and taken to Russian prison camps. In April and May 1940 they were shot by the Russian secret police on orders from the Moscow Ministry of the Interior and buried in mass graves in the Katyn forest near the town of Smolensk.