Moscow will not hand over the wreckage of Kaczynski's plane to Poland

The Foreign Ministry responded to Poland's demands for the return of the wreckage of the Polish leader Tu-154, who crashed near Smolensk in 2010. The Russian Foreign Ministry and other relevant departments have repeatedly stated that until the completion of the investigative actions in Russia, which are being carried out, including on the basis of more and more new requests from the Polish side, as well as the adoption of the final procedural decision, material evidence must be located on the territory of the Russian Federation, quotes RIA Novosti as the director of the Third European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Oleg Tyapkin. According to him, the references of the Poles to international law, which allegedly does not allow Russia to keep material evidence, providing access to them for Polish investigators, are untenable. In accordance with the international practice of investigating aircraft accidents, material evidence, including the wreckage of an aircraft, is transferred only after the completion of the investigative actions, which in our case are continuing. In this regard, the attempts of the Polish side to appeal to international law, seeking to return the wreckage of the presidential Tu-154 to Poland, are absolutely groundless, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said. He recalled that Moscow has repeatedly turned to the Polish prosecutor's office with a request to provide copies of the transcript and phonogram of the telephone conversation between Kaczynski and his brother Yaroslav, which took place just before the plane crash. As far as I know, the answer has not yet been received. We hope that these materials will help shed additional light on the circumstances of the tragedy, said by an official of the Russian Foreign Ministry. A week ago, the Mokotov district court in Warsaw postponed until May the consideration of the request of the Polish Prosecutor General's Office for the temporary arrest of three Russian air traffic controllers who were on duty at the Smolensk-Severny airfield on the day of the Kaczynski plane crash, TASS reports . The meeting in the case of Pavel P. (the last name is not named according to Polish law) was postponed until May 27, 2021, the meeting in the case of Viktor R. was also postponed to the same date, the message says. Earlier, the Polish prosecutor's office changed the charges against Russian dispatchers from unintentionally provoking a catastrophe to intentional actions that caused the death of a large number of people. The Polish side noted that the court's decision on the arrest of the dispatchers will help put them on the international wanted list and require the extradition of Russian citizens to Poland. According to the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, the Russian authorities condemn the intention of the Polish side to demand the extradition of the Russians in order to charge them with deliberately creating the conditions that led to the tragedy. He added that the extradition of the persons requested by Warsaw will not take place, if only because this is not provided for by Russian legislation. Aleksey Kondratyev , a member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, pointed out that the expert opinions of international experts show that the Polish pilots on the presidential plane were to blame for the crash. Russia will not give its citizens up to the Poles for mockery, the senator summed up. On April 10, 2010, the Tu-154M passenger airliner with tail number PLF 101 of the 36th Special Aviation Regiment of the Polish Air Force flew to Smolensk. The delegation on board was to take part in mourning events timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy of 1940. Then 22 thousand Polish officers were shot. During landing, the airliner got into a thick fog, touched the top of a birch with its left wing, as a result of which, with a sharp heeling, it turned over 180 degrees and fell with the bottom of the fuselage up to the ground 200-300 meters from the end of the runway. The crash killed all on board seven crew members and 89 passengers, including the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski with his wife Maria, the head of the presidential office Vladislav Stasiak, the head of the National Bank of Poland Slawomir Skshipek, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer and other high-ranking officials of Poland.