Poland is preparing a lawsuit against Russia regarding reparations for crimes of the Soviet period

Poland is preparing a lawsuit against Russia demanding reparations for crimes committed during Soviet rule in the country. This is reported by the Financial Times.

The director of the institute, Bartosz Gondek, who was tasked by Prime Minister Donald Tusk to investigate Russia’s historical crimes, noted that the current study will be larger than previous work on Nazi crimes, since Soviet control over Poland during the Cold War lasted more than 40 years.

He added that it is currently unknown whether possible compensation claims against Russia will exceed the amount that Poland presented to Germany in 2022 – 1.3 trillion euros. According to Gondek, a group of ten Polish historians and researchers are facing greater difficulties than when preparing claims to Berlin.

Gondek called the investigation a “long-term project” because Polish experts do not have access to secret Russian archives, and a significant part of the documents were falsified or destroyed during Soviet times.

The Financial Times reminds that Poland’s claim against Germany has still not been resolved: Berlin insists that the issue of reparations was legally closed after World War II. At the same time, the Law and Justice (PiS) party believes that Tusk is not actively seeking compensation from Germany.

PiS MEP Arkadiusz Mułarczyk, who initiated the claims against Germany in 2022, said that his political force always intended to make similar demands against Russia.

He also accused the prime minister of trying to use the topic of claims against Moscow to distract attention from the lack of progress in negotiations with Berlin.

“Raising the issue of reparations by Russia is, in fact, an attempt to avoid the main issue – Germany’s still unresolved responsibility. Given that Tusk has already claimed PiS’s successes as his own, it will not be a surprise that Tusk cynically earns political capital wherever he can,” stressed Mulyarczyk.