Poland still divided on Smolensk on 2nd anniversary

Poland is remembering the victims of the air disaster two years ago to the day that killed 96 people including former President Lech Kaczynski and the country’s first lady.

Their names were among those read out at a ceremony at a military cemetery near Warsaw where a monument to the victims is located.

Kaczynski’s plane came down amid thick fog at Smolensk in Russia. The Polish prime minister Donald Tusk accepted the findings of the official Russian investigation, blaming the pilots’ decision to land despite extremely poor visibility.

But the events have divided the country to the extent that Polish nationalists who strongly disputed the official explanations held their own ceremony in front of the Russian embassy in Warsaw.

Lech Kaczynski’s brother Jaroslaw, leader of Poland’s main opposition party, was there.

He and his supporters believe Polish authorities did not do enough to investigate the reasons for the crash. Some even believe it was not an accident but that there was a conspiracy to kill the president.

Kaczynski now says he intends to run for the presidency, having earlier said he would not seek the top job again.

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