The Russian Military-Historical Society headed by Putin's adviser organised the display at the site where Soviet secret police murdered around 22,000 Polish officers, police and intelligentsia in spring 1940 on Stalin's orders, drawing condemnation.
Russia opened an exhibition titled "10 Centuries of Polish Russophobia" at the Katyn memorial complex on 10 April, drawing condemnation from Polish officials and victims' families who called the timing and location "disgusting malice".
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The exhibition opened on the 16th anniversary of the Smolensk air disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 96 people including Polish President Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria on 10 April 2010, and three days before Poland's Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre on 13 April.
The Russian Military-Historical Society, headed by Russian President Vladimir Putin's adviser Vladimir Medinsky, organised the display at the site where Soviet secret police murdered around 22,000 Polish officers, police and intelligentsia in spring 1940 on Stalin's orders.
According to the organisation's website, the exhibition depicts the "hatred of the Polish elite towards Russia and the Russian people" manifested in political and military actions over centuries. It focuses heavily on the 20th century and World War II, with "special attention" to alleged contemporary Polish Russophobia.
The display accuses Warsaw of "aggressive anti-Russian policy", citing the removal of Soviet soldier monuments and military support for Ukraine.
Dr Rafał Kościński, spokesperson for Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, said the exhibition represents a return to Soviet-era propaganda that blamed Germans for the Katyn massacre.
"For years we have been observing a turn in the historical policy of the Russian Federation, in which there has been a return to the narrative that the Germans are responsible for the Katyn Massacre," Kościński told Euronews.
"This is a return to 1943, when, after the Third Reich announced the discovery of the graves of Polish officers in the Katyn forest, the Soviets tried to put the responsibility for their deaths on the German occupiers."
He said the exhibition is part of broader Russian attempts to assign co-responsibility for the outbreak of World War II to Poland and to reinterpret the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Place and date not an accident
Izabella Saryusz-Skąpska, president of the Federation of Katyn Families, condemned the exhibition's placement and timing.
"The choice of the place and time of this exhibition is a disgusting malice, calculated to hurt us - the Katyn Families, who have suffered a lot from Russia," she told Euronews.
She noted that Polish historians mock the exhibition's title, pointing out that Moscow did not exist in anything like its current form 10 centuries ago.
Saryusz-Skąpska said families of victims spent years building war cemeteries at Katyn, Mednoye and Kharkiv as symbols of reconciliation. "Had it not been for Russia's attack on Ukraine and a full-scale war, the Katyn Families would have been heading for the necropolises in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mednoye and Kyiv-Bykivnia at that time," she said.
The Katyn massacre was carried out in April and May 1940 by the NKVD on the orders of Stalin and the Soviet Politburo. The victims included officers captured during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, police officers and members of the intelligentsia.
Moscow denied responsibility for decades, blaming Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union officially admitted NKVD responsibility in 1990, calling it "one of the grave crimes of Stalinism". In 2010, Russia's State Duma confirmed the crime was carried out "on the direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet leaders".
Part of a broader strategy
The 2010 Smolensk disaster occurred when a Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154 crashed near Smolensk in thick fog while carrying a delegation to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Katyn massacre.
Nikolai Rybakov, a Russian opposition politician from the Yabloko party, called for the exhibition's removal on 17 April, arguing it violates Russia's international obligations under its 1994 agreement with Poland and 1992 Treaty on Friendly Cooperation, which require maintaining memorial sites in a dignified condition.
Russia has taken several actions at Katyn-related sites in recent years. In June 2022, Smolensk mayor Andrei Borisov ordered the removal of Polish flags from the Katyn memorial complex, citing "blatantly anti-Russian statements by Polish politicians".
In spring 2025, bas-reliefs depicting Polish military decorations were removed from the Mednoye memorial complex at the prosecutor's office's request. In 2023, busts of Stalin, Lenin, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Yakov Sverdlov were installed at Mednoye, which officials said reflected "the era" of mass repression.
The exhibition initially opened in Moscow in October 2025 before being moved to Katyn in April 2026.