On April 11, 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 Polish military aircraft slammed into a forest near the runway of a military airfield in Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 passengers and crew. This wasn’t just any airplane crash. This was Poland’s equivalent of Air Force One. Aboard were Poland’s President Ryszard Kaczorowski, the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Polish government officials, and 18 members of the Polish Parliament. They were en route to a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the murder of some 22,000 Polish military officers, intellectuals, clergy, and other influential Poles by Stalin’s NKVD.

Today, Poland commemorates the 12th anniversary of the Smoleńsk plane crash.

President Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria and 94 other senior state & military officials tragically perished while en route to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyń Massacre.

May they rest in peace. 🕯 pic.twitter.com/qgqSgptRWE

— Embassy of Poland U.S. (@PolishEmbassyUS) April 10, 2022

The investigation was shrouded in controversy from the beginning. While Polish investigators were allowed on the site, they had to be accompanied by Russian investigators. Both “black boxes” were recovered intact and analyzed, but the Russians refused to let the Poles have custody of the wreckage. To add fuel to that fire was the fact that the deceased president was a staunch anti-communist who put Poland’s interests above Vladimir Putin’s, and there have been persistent rumors of traces of explosive residue found in the wreckage. For a good summary of the issues, this is a good article.

After the initial report, other investigations conducted by the Poles that concluded there was Russian involvement in the crash.

Today another of those reports hit the fan.

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 latest of the commission’s reports, released Monday, alleges that an intentional detonation of planted explosives caused the April 10, 2010 crash of 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.

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.

I don’t have the technical expertise to untangle the skein of claims, but the technical part of the investigation is a sideshow. The real issue is Ukraine and the imminent threat that Russia poses to Poland.

Very strong words from Poland’s PM Morawiecki:

– Macron needs to stop calling Putin all the time.

– The Russians are criminals.

– Russia is committing genocide.

– The sanctions are too weak. Time to ramp them up significantly. pic.twitter.com/vc5MYLrXY4

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 5, 2022

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda tells @DanaBashCNN that Russia perpetrates genocidal acts in Ukraine and that it wants to eradicate the Ukrainian nation.

He says the West didn’t listen to Poland, Ukraine & the Baltic states regarding the Russian problem. pic.twitter.com/ttQQORvWw6

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 7, 2022

Poland, you’ll recall, took the lead in attempting to supply the Ukrainian Air Force with replacement aircraft (Biden Junta Duplicity Revealed After Poland Declares MiGs for Ukraine Are Ready to Go). Poland is the country that is the focal point for supplies going to Ukraine. If the war expands, Poland will be the first target. Poland leads Europe in expelling Russian diplomats (Poland Expels 45 Russian Spies Posing as Diplomats as Fears of Attacks on Ukraine Supply Route Looms), and the Russian ambassador says relations with Poland are the “worst since WW II.” Probably not a great comparison, given that Russia collaborated with Nazi Germany to backstab and then carve up Poland.

Reintroducing this controversy, especially the high-handed and disrespectful way Poland was treated by Russia during the investigation, at this time is a way of reminding Poles what they are up against and what living under Russian domination means. And it serves as a way of building national unity in the long term struggle to restrain Putin’s cavalier use of military force to get what he wants.