The 2010 Smolensk plane crash that killed then President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others was caused by an “attack” resulting from a decision made “at the highest level of the Kremlin”, says Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s ruling party and the late president’s twin brother.
The Polish government at the time – led by Donald Tusk, now leader of the opposition – then “covered up” the incident as part of a “macabre reconciliation with Russia”, added Kaczyński.
Kaczyński: Nie mam wątpliwości, że (w Smoleńsku – red.) był zamach. Ta decyzja musiała zapaść na szczycie Kremla#wieszwięcej https://t.co/mQMuNsQ6Fc
— tvp.info 🇵🇱 (@tvp_info) April 4, 2022
The remarks, which come ahead of the anniversary of the tragedy this Sunday, follow years of similar statements and insinuations by Kaczyński and figures from his Law and Justice (PiS) party, suggesting that the crash was no accident and that the true cause was subsequently covered up.
However, despite launching a new investigation into the crash after coming to power in 2015, the PiS government has so far presented no clear evidence to disprove the previous official Polish and Russian findings that the incident was an accident.
The head of PiS’s investigation, Antoni Macierewicz, has repeatedly promised to release proof that the crash was caused deliberately. But his committee has still not published its final report, despite Macierewicz saying two years ago that it was ready.
Today it was also revealed that the Smolensk commission has again delayed the publication of its final report on the causes of the crash, citing the pandemic. The commission has been working for four years, but has yet to produce a promised breakthrough https://t.co/zzWqA2PSC1
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 27, 2020
In Kaczyński’s latest remarks, which came in an interview with PiS-linked weekly Sieci, he claimed that “documents to which I have access as an aggrieved person in the investigation have filled in the final gaps in knowledge about the course of the tragedy”.
As a result, “I have no doubt that it was an attack”, he said. “There is evidence of this.” Moreover, “the decision must have been taken at the highest level of the Kremlin,” added Kaczyński, though he admitted that it would be “difficult to obtain evidence” to prove in court who exactly was responsible.
The PiS chairman also told Sieci that the “Polish government of the time adopted a course of covering up the matter, building upon it some macabre reconciliation with Russia”. PiS has long accused Tusk and his Civic Platform (PO) party of favouring good relations with Russia at the expense of discovering the truth about Smolensk.
In 2020, a judge ordered Kaczyński to apologise to Radosław Sikorski, who served as foreign minister at the time of the crash, for accusing him of “treason” over the issue.
Kaczyński’s latest claims have been met with scepticism from opposition figures. Marek Belka, a former prime minister and now MEP, told Wirtualna Polska that he does not believe there is any new evidence to challenge the previous official findings. He called the idea of a deliberate attack a “crazy, sick concept”.
An opposition MP, Barbara Nowacka, said she has also been given access to the report produced by Macierewicz’s committee, as her mother, Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, was one of the victims of the crash,
She told the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza daily that document does indeed claim to prove PiS’s assertions, but only because it is an entirely “political report…that has very little to do with the real evidence”. She noted that even some members of Macierewicz’s committee have refused to endorse the findings.
A committee founded by the government almost six years ago with a promise to reveal the “truth” behind the Smolensk plane disaster has cost more than 22.6m zloty (€4.9m) despite not yet publishing its findings https://t.co/w3FOKMyZXG
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 29, 2021
Nowacka accused PiS of conducting a “political war on the coffins of our loved ones”, using “lies and manipulation” to “divide Poland using our common tragedy of 10 April 2010”.
Polling in recent years has generally shown that around a quarter of Poles – in particular supporters of PiS – believe that the Smolensk was the result of an attack, while around 60% say that it was an accident, notes fact-checking service Demagog.
In 2019, Tomasz Arabski – chief of staff to Tusk at the time of the crash – was found guilty of negligence for his role in organising the presidential flight to Smolensk. He received a ten-month suspended sentence, which was upheld on appeal last year.
Main image credit: Dominik Sadowski/Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
