Wednesday marked exactly nine years since a Polish plane carrying President Lech Kaczyński, his wife and 94 others, including top political and military figures, crashed near Smolensk, western Russia, killing all those on board.
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar paid tribute to the victims of the crash in a Twitter post.
He also said that Russia "must answer" for the disaster near Smolensk on April 10, 2010, Poland’s niezalezna.pl website reported.
It quoted Bodnar as tweeting: "Rest in peace the Polish President Lech Kaczyński and all the victims of the Smolensk tragedy! Russia must answer for that!"
Hints of foul play
A new Polish commission reinvestigating the 2010 crash said in April 2017 that the plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion and that Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as they neared the runway.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of 2017 denied Polish suggestions that the 2010 air crash was the result of a Russian conspiracy.
Russia has refused to return the wreckage of the presidential plane to Poland, claiming that it is continuing to investigate the crash.
The new Polish commission, which is still probing the crash, was set up by Poland’s conservative governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in 2015.
The party is headed by Jarosław Kaczyński, twin brother of Poland’s late President Lech Kaczyński.
PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which 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.
A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the human rights body the Council of Europe last year called on Russia to “hand over the wreckage of the Polish Air Force Tu-154 to the Polish authorities without further delay” in a manner that “avoids any further deterioration” of potential evidence.
“The continuing refusal of the Russian authorities to return the wreckage and other evidence constitutes an abuse of rights and has fuelled speculation on the Polish side that Russia has something to hide,” the Council of Europe parliamentarians said.
A British laboratory has reportedly found “traces of explosives” in samples from the crashed Polish jet.
(gs/pk)
Source: niezalezna.pl