Russian official accuses Polish FM of ‘hallucinations’

The comment follows a reported announcement by Waszczykowski that Poland will unveil documents throwing new light on the catastrophe, in which Polish President Lech Kaczyński was killed along with 95 others, including dozens of top officials.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian investigative commission, responded by writing on Twitter: "More hallucinations by Polish politicians."

Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and Lech Kaczyński’s twin brother, said last month that under the conservative PiS government, which came to power in October, Poland needed to “establish the truth” about the reasons for the 2010 crash in western Russia.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz in February appointed a new team of investigators to look into the disaster.

While still an opposition MP, Macierewicz had led the so-called Macierewicz Commission, a group of parliamentarians mainly from the then-opposition Law and Justice party which concluded in a 2014 report that the Polish president's Tupolev 154 plane was brought down by an explosion.

This was in stark contrast to earlier official Polish and Russian reports on the causes of the tragedy.

The former report cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport. The Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles. (pk)