Warsaw Says Putin Plotted Crash That Killed Polish Leader In 2010

A Polish government special commission has reinforced its earlier allegations that the 2010 plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in Russia was the result of Moscow’s assassination plan, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Photo Insert: Suspicions are additionally fueled by Russia’s refusal to return the wreckage, which has complicated Poland’s investigation.

The latest of the commission’s reports, released Monday, alleges that an intentional detonation of planted explosives caused the April 10, 2010 crash of the Soviet-made Tu-154M plane that killed Kaczynski, the first lady, and 94 other government and armed forces figures as well as many prominent Poles.

The report drums up hostility toward Russia among some Poles, chiefly supporters of the nationalist government, it what seems to be an effort to consolidate the voter base of the Law and Justice party, which was founded by Lech and his twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twins in 2001.

Suspicions are additionally fueled by Russia’s refusal to return the wreckage, which has complicated Poland’s investigation.

Earlier, two separate reports by Polish and Russian experts on aviation incidents said the crash on approach in dense fog to the Smolensk airport, which did not have sophisticated aviation equipment, was the result of human errors made in adverse weather conditions.

Their deaths were the result of an “act of unlawful interference by the Russian side,” the commission’s head Antoni Macierewicz told a news conference.

“The main and indisputable proof of the interference was an explosion in the left wing ... followed by an explosion in the plane’s center,” said Macierewicz, who in 2015-2018 served as defense minister in Poland’s right-wing government.

He denied that any mistakes were made by the Polish pilots or crew members, despite bad weather at the time of the crash.

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