Another Tragedy Strikes Polish-Russian Relations

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LEADING ARTICLE Leaders everywhere must do their utmost to help limit the damage

Many Poles believe their country to be uniquely prone to tragedy, and the air crash that took the lives of the President, his wife, and dozens of senior officials this weekend will do nothing to dislodge that conviction. The site of the disaster, in the forest of Katyn near Smolensk, adds a bitter and mocking irony. Of all the places in the world where the Polish President's plane could have met with catastrophe, it had to be here: so close to where the elite of the Polish military was murdered on the orders of Stalin - a place, and an act, that prevented any real normalisation of …