Russian and Polish Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk will visit the city of Katyn on Wednesday, where thousands of Polish POWs were massacred by Soviet forces in WWII, the Russian government's press service said on Tuesday.
Putin and Tusk will take part in a memorial service marking the Katyn massacre in the Smolensk Region in western Russia.
"Putin and his Polish counterpart will also discuss bilateral relations," the press service said.
Over 20,000 Polish officers, police and civilians taken prisoner during the 1939 partitioning of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were killed in the Katyn forest in 1940, as well as in prisons and other locations by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB.
The Soviet Union acknowledged the massacre in 1990. Modern Russia also recognized Soviet responsibility for the mass shooting, but has not classified it as a war crime, something Warsaw has demanded.
Putin moved to heal the rift over the massacre when he visited Poland in September to mark the 70th anniversary of its invasion. He called the killings "a crime" but urged "forgiveness." He said all European countries bear their share of responsibility for the outbreak of the war.
MOSCOW, April 6 (RIA Novosti)
