DISINFO: Newly declassified documents prove "Katyn affair" was staged by Nazis
SUMMARY
A batch of documents recently declassified by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) proves that the so-called "Katyn affair" was a Nazi fabrication. Records of interviews of Polish soldiers, conducted by Soviet security officials, show that the mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn Forest had been perpetrated by Nazi German soldiers and falsely blamed on the Red Army.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and an attempt to distort the truth about the Soviet crimes committed against Poland.
The "newly declassified" materials cited in the article have been in open access since at least October 2022. At the time it was claimed that the documents had been declassified by the State Archives of the Russian Federation, not the FSB.
The Katyń Massacre is a symbol of the criminal policy of the USSR against the Polish nation. In Spring 1940, almost 22.000 Polish prisoners of war were executed by the NKVD in Katyn, Kharkiv and Kalinin (Tver). The Massacre was carefully considered and organised by the Soviet leadership. Up until 1991, the Soviet authorities refused to accept responsibility for this crime, blaming Nazi Germany for the mass-murders of Polish prisoners of war.
In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin submitted official documents confirming the Soviet responsibility for this crime to Polish President Lech Walesa. Read more about the Katyń Massacre here.
Throughout 2020, the Russian authorities took several measures regarding the Katyń Massacre, which may be considered as historical revisionism. In May 2020, the municipal authorities of the city of Tver ordered the removal of two plaques commemorating the memory of the victims of the Katyń Massacre. In November 2020, the Russian authorities organised a conference on the Katyń Massacre – several participants of the conference promoted the idea that the USSR and the NKVD were not responsible for this crime. These statements are an evident example of historical revisionism promoted by Russia – the Polish authorities continue to demand an investigation into this Soviet crime against the Polish nation.
The Polish Institute of Historical Remembrance protested against the Russian attempts to distort the truth about Soviet crimes.
See here for exhaustive debunking by The Insider (in Russian).
The trends in Russia to promote historical revisionism and re-glorify USSR and Josef Stalin have gained momentum as our articles here on Memorial, on blaming Poland and on Russian school education illustrate.