INDEPENDENT.UK/ Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to join Polish officials in remembering the slaughter of 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviet Union in March 1940. “In this ground lay Soviet citizens, burnt in the fire of the Stalinist repression of the 1930s; Polish officers, shot on secret orders; soldiers of the Red Army, executed by the Nazis,” said Putin. Also attending was Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who remarked that he hoped the ceremony on would begin healing the conflict over the massacre. “I want to believe that the word of truth can bring together two great nations, which have been painfully separated by history,” Tusk said. But Putin went on to say that "With decades of cynical lies, they tried to blot out the truth about the Katyn shootings. It would be a similar kind of falsehood to ... place the blame for these crimes on the Russian people."
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