MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Moscow continues to hold dialogue with Warsaw on the construction of a monument in memory of Soviet troops buried at the Rakowicki cemetery in Krakow, the issue being complicated because of Poland's attempts to politicize it, Russian Deputy Culture Minister Alla Manilova has announced.
Manilova told the Russian Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on Tuesday that in 2013 a burial document was signed that specifically mentions the number and nationality of military prisoners buried at the site.
"And now they are basically rejecting the documents that they have signed themselves. This is not a question of politics for us," Manilova said.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the practice of vandalizing monuments to Soviet soldiers that helped liberate Poland from the Nazis during World War II has become habitual in the country as part of an anti-Russian campaign that some Polish politicians and media are conducting amid the Ukrainian crisis, which the West claims Russia is involved in.
In July 2014, Moscow condemned the demolition of a monument to Soviet WWII soldiers in the Polish town of Limanowa, viewing it as an attempt to unilaterally rewrite the 1994 intergovernmental agreement between the two countries on burial and memorial sites to victims of wars and repressions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reminded at the end of February that more than 600,000 Soviet soldiers died liberating Poland from Nazi forces during the Second World War.
