Polish President Dead in Plane Crash

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of others have been killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Polish and Russian officials said no-one had survived after the plane apparently hit trees as it approached Smolensk's airport in thick fog.

Poland's army chief, central bank governor, MPs and leading historians were among more than 80 passengers.

They were flying in from Warsaw to mark 70 years since the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces.

the article can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm


A few minutes before nine, the plain just crashed. Hit a tree with its wing, then the ground - everyone inside, dead. There are no survivors.

I have the radio on now. They're reading lists, official lists full of names of people who where there. 88 in all, I think. The President and his wife is among them, and then many, many public people all Poles know from television. It's a catastrophe for Poland on a govermental level, but everyone here, everyone's just shocked that sthing like this could happen. These people, they're not anonymous - it's not an anonymous crash about which you feel a bit sad, but move on afer two minutes.

For Poland, it's a disaster. When my mom woke me up today and said: the president is dead. Military commanders, poslowie (goverment members?), Katyn representatives... I rolled over, told her she was joking, and went back to sleep. And then she turned the radio on.

A lady on TV (Sejm member, I think, I'm not entirely sure) said: "I don't want to blame, I'm not putting any blame on Russia, this is not to be recieved that way - but that land (directly Katyn) is such a terrible place for us Poles."

In Katyn more than 20,000 Polish officers where murdered by Soviets. The President and his delegation was flying to the commemoration.

As I said, Esmé, our thoughts are with Poland. It's a terrible tragedy.

It's all over the news here too. It's not just the President, but the Central Bank governor and Army Chiefs as well. If this were to happen in the USA, it'd be like losing half the executive branch.

Yep. NBP (the bank) decides on a lot of monetary matters - person controlling it has a lot of power.

Well, mostly we can move on since it's not a presidential system in Poland - there will be elections in about two months. Other posts will be filled. Army commanders (special forces, air forces, marine, land...) - those too. Not by any means with people of the same caliber, but they'll be filled, we'll move on. We lost a lot of terrific people - Kaczorowski? Last president on exile. Only for a short time, but still. Imprisoned by the NKWD, fought under Monte Cassino...

Right now Poland is just mourning - not all, though. Kaczynski and his wife are to be buried at Wawel, and apparently not all agree with this decision. There were protests (people went out in the streets) against this. Regardless of whether or not I agree, I don't think they can do anything, change the decision.

As for Russia - well, Poles never liked Russia. Recent gas deal courtesy of the goverment? Absolute failure that Poles will be opaying for the next three decades, almost. That was called a "warming" in the Polish-Russian relationship (and seriously, media coverage - zero).

Now this too is a so-called "warming". That they're helping, mourning with us. And then there are others who claim to see darkness on the horizon. As in, Russian take-over of Poland via political going ons in Poland. We have dreadful politics as it were. For example, Putin was at the Katyn Commemorations with Tusk (shifty person. really. I mean, I wasn't a big Kaczynski fan, I'm not that interested in politics even, but even I know this), but not with Kaczynski. Now, Tusk i sleft, and he's kinda big on that "warming" with Russia. Me, I think that's an exaggeration.

Don't know if anyone knows... Kaczynski's a national hero in Georgia. When the war started, he got on a plane (despite a lot of protests, despite the goverment's protests) and took a lot of central-eastern european presidents with him. The EU was deliberating, considering. For a long time.

They identified Maria Kaczynska by her wedding ring.