MOSCOW, March 14 /TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry has described as absurd the Russophobic remarks by Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz who claimed that Moscow had organized a series of wars and terrorist acts in a bid to change Europe’s political set-up.
The Polish defense minister also said that the crash of the Polish president’s plane near Smolensk in April 2010 had made Poland the first victim of terrorism in a contemporary conflict.
"It is difficult to comment on these speculations. A more important thing is that Mr. Macierewicz’s irresponsible statements were directed at destabilizing the already difficult relations between Moscow and Warsaw even further and can hardly tag along with the previously voiced wishes to develop pragmatic cooperation between Russia and Poland by using bilateral mechanisms and formats frozen by the previous authorities," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The plane of Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashed when trying to land at Smolensk airport in thick fog on April 10, 2010. An official Polish delegation, which consisted of high-ranking officials and public figures, was heading for Katyn to attend the commemorations of the Katyn Forest Massacre - a series of mass executions of Polish nationals in a forest near Smolensk in 1940. The plane fell down meters before reaching the runway. A Polish government commission concluded that the plane had lost altitude lower than the permissible level at extremely high speed in weather conditions, which made contact with the Earth impossible. The late decision to go for an extra circle was also a root cause behind the plane crash, which killed all the 96 people onboard.