Witold Waszczykowski
The Minister of foreign Affairs of Poland Witold Waszczykowski said that the authorities do not intend to care for monuments, established in honor of the red army. He reported about it in interview to the newspaper “Kommersant”.
According to him, the graves and cemeteries of nothing will happen: they are protected by international law, the Polish government and bilateral agreements. “We are not destroying the monuments on the graves. But the local government may destroy the symbols of Soviet domination: the red stars, hammer and sickle — that’s something like,” — said Waszczykowski.
He noted, Warsaw grateful for the liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945. “But then the next 45 years, the Soviet army was dictating who will rule Poland — and it wasn’t the government, elected by the poles. And that the government appreciated the Soviet symbols in the Polish cities. And democratic government — no,” the Minister added.
On July 24 the speaker of the upper house of the Russian Parliament Valentina Matviyenko announced the intention of the senators to appeal to the President Vladimir Putin with a request for response to the adoption of the Polish law on decommunization.
A week earlier, the President of Poland Andrzej Duda signed a new wording of the law providing for the dismantling of Soviet monuments throughout the country, including busts and memorial plaques. In addition, it stipulates the removal of Communist elements from the names of schools and other social institutions, buildings, structures and objects of public domain, streets, bridges and squares. The document comes into force three months after the signing.