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Russian Defense Ministry releases unprecedented details on Poland’s liberation from Nazis

Historical records were declassified in July 2017, they had never been published in open sources earlier and were available only to a narrow circle of specialists

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry is for the first time making public unique documents on the liberation of Poland by the Soviet Army in 1944-1945, with archive data posted on the ministry’s official website.

On Monday, Polish President Andrzej Duda approved the parliament’s amendments to the law banning propaganda of communism or any other totalitarian regime in the names of buildings and facilities, which envisage the pulling down of Soviet era monuments, including monuments in honor of the Soviet Red Army. According to experts, about 250 facilities honoring the Red Army may be pulled down.

"Historical records were declassified in July 2017, they had never been published in open sources earlier and were available only to a narrow circle of specialists. The project ‘Liberation of Poland. Price of the Victory’ is a selection of unique historical documents from the Central Archive of the Russian Defense Ministry," the report said.

The declassified data "is an unbiased evidence of bloody battles of the Red Army for the liberation of a fraternal republic, of a true attitude of the invaders towards the local population and the attitude of liberated Poles to their liberators, soldiers of the Red Army," the Defense Ministry said.

It said the readers will for the first time have a possibility to read the documents that testify to "numerous facts of favorable attitude of the Polish population and clergy to the Red Army, Poles’ sincere participation in burying Soviet military killed in liberating Poland, pledges to eternalize the feats of Red Army soldiers in monuments, and to preserve them for the future generations".

There are also documents that register facts of brigandage, mass killings and tortures of the Polish population by Hitler troops, barbaric destruction by the invaders of settlements and facilities of cultural heritage.

Declassified files describe heavy battles of the Red Army for literally each kilometer of the liberated Polish land, telling of its numerous losses, the ministry said.