Russia opens exhibition on ‘Polish Russophobia’ at site of Katyn massacre

An exhibition titled “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia” has opened at the memorial complex in the village of Katyn in Russia’s Smolensk region, where over 20 thousand Polish nationals were executed by Soviet authorities in 1940. The project was organized by the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), headed by Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky.

The display opened on April 10, just three days before Poland marks the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre. According to the description on the organizers' website, the exhibition is dedicated to "the hatred of the Polish elite toward Russia" across different historical periods. The organizers claim this hatred manifested, in particular, in "the seizure of Russian territory" and "the destruction of the Russian, Belarusian, and Little Russian peoples."

The exhibition also reportedly focuses on what it characterizes as contemporary “Russophobia in modern Poland,” accusing Polish authorities of pursuing anti-Russian policies, including dismantling Soviet-era war memorials and supporting Ukraine militarily.

The Katyn memorial complex stands at the site where approximately 4,000 Polish officers were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, in 1940. Soviet authorities denied responsibility for decades, attributing the killings to Nazi Germany. In 1990, the Soviet government officially acknowledged the NKVD’s role.

In 2010, the Russian State Duma stated that the killings were carried out on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin and other Soviet officials. That same year, then-President Dmitry Medvedev affirmed that Soviet leadership bore responsibility, rejecting alternative accounts as unfounded.

In June 2022, the Polish flag was removed from the Katyn memorial complex. Smolensk Mayor Andrey Borisov said at the time that Polish flags were inappropriate at Russian memorials, citing what he described as anti-Russian statements by Polish politicians.