Unknown individuals broke memorial plaques on two mass graves at the Memorial Cemetery of Soviet Soldiers in Warsaw. The incident was discovered on October 18 during monitoring by the Russian embassy in Poland, the diplomatic mission reported.
The plaques contained the names of fallen soldiers of the Red Army. “Memorial plaques with the names of fallen soldiers of the Red Army were broken at two mass graves“, the embassy said in a statement quoted by TASS.
The Russian diplomatic mission has lodged a strong protest with the Polish authorities and demanded that the consequences of the vandalism be eliminated, the perpetrators be found and punished, and such cases not be repeated. The appeal was sent to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Masovian Voivode.
At the moment, there is no public announcement about the perpetrators being identified or about any punitive actions taken by the Polish authorities.
The cemetery holds the remains of thousands of servicemen
The memorial cemetery is located on “Żwierki i Wyguri“ Street in Warsaw. There are 696 mass graves and 138 individual graves on its territory, in which the exhumed remains of Soviet servicemen are buried.
They died in the battles for the liberation of Poland from Nazi occupation in the period from August 1944 to January 1945. Data on the number of graves and the period are indicated in the information distributed by the Russian embassy and quoted by TASS.
According to the Russian diplomatic mission, Poland has an obligation to protect the places of memory and military cemeteries under the bilateral agreement of 1994. The publicly available messages on the case do not indicate whether Polish institutions have given an official response to the protest.
Sources: news.mail.ru, vz.ru