Word: kaczynsky
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...president of Poland was killed in a plane crash on Saturday in western Russia, setting off a new cycle of grievances between Russia and Poland on a day that was supposed to serve the cause of reconciliation between them. President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and some of his top security officials were among the 96 people killed in the crash. As the fuselage of the Soviet-made Tupelov airplane (operated by a Polish airliner) still smoldered in forest near the city of Smolensk, the grim irony of their deaths became clear to the stunned Polish nation: Their president had been...
...Kaczynski, who became Poland's president in 2005, had been a dogged critic of Putin and Russia's efforts to restore influence over the former Soviet Union. He sparred with the Kremlin over the bans Russia imposed on Polish food imports in recent years, calling them part of a strategy of political blackmail and manipulation. In 2006, he even proposed that the European Union impose sanctions on Russia for its economic bullying in Eastern Europe. His animosity had deep roots. In 1980, he spent nearly a year in prison for "anti-socialist" activities when the Moscow-backed communist government imposed...
...most people in Poland and in Russia, Wednesday's ceremony with Tusk was still seen as a remarkable step forward in the process of reconciliation. President Kaczynski was due to arrive on Saturday for another ceremony along with a delegation of more than 80 Polish officials and relatives of the victims of the Katyn massacres. "I hope I get a visa," Kaczynski had joked when announcing the visit. As part of the ceremony, he was due to receive an urn of soil from the forests were the thousands of Polish officers had been executed with a bullet to the base...
Poland has launched a week of national mourning, following the devastating plane crash in Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife as well as several other top-ranking officials. Ninety-six passengers were killed after the aged Russian aircraft, a Tupolev Tu-154, plunged into a forest near the airport in the Russian city of Smolensk. The Polish officials were there to mark the 70th anniversary of a massacre of Polish officers. (Read a 1951 story on the Katyn Forest Massacre...
...Kaczynski, 59, was active in the anti-communist opposition since the 1970s and advised the Solidarity hero Lech Walesa during the workers' strikes that led to the toppling of the communist regime in 1989. He later split with Walesa and was a co-founder of the rightist Law and Justice party with his twin brother, Jaroslaw. He resigned from the party when he became president in 2005 but continued to support...