Is this simply a political move, or yet another step in rewriting the historical narrative of the Katyń Massacre? And what weighs more heavily on the Kremlin today: the Polish Virtuti Militari decoration or the memory of the atrocity itself?
At the Polish War Cemetery in Katyń (Russia) lie the remains of 4,421 officers and cadets of the Polish Army, prisoners of war from the Kozielsk camp, who were executed in a nearby forest in 1940 by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. In total, around 22,000 Polish citizens were killed by NKWD during the spring of 1940, including nearly 15,000 army and state police officers.
Thus the removal of bas-reliefs depicting the Virtuti Militari and the Cross of the September Campaign from the cemetery in Katyń in November 2025, provoked public outrage in Poland. This was not the first time the Russian prosecutor’s office had taken action against Polish memorial sites associated with the Katyń Massacre.
In 2020, plaques were dismantled from a building in Tver that served in 1940 as NKVD headquarters and where Polish prisoners were executed. These plaques provided information in both Polish and Russian about the events that took place. The Russian prosecutor’s office claimed that “the events described on the memorial plaques did not actually occur.”
Furthermore, in June 2022, Russian authorities removed Polish flags from the war cemeteries in Katyń and Miednoje. In May 2025, the bas-reliefs of the Virtuti Militari and the Cross of the September Campaign were also removed from the cemetery in Miednoje.
Soon after, activists from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation demanded that similar measures be taken in Katyń, arguing that both decorations represented “anti-Russian symbolism.”
In their correspondence to the prosecutor’s office, the communists cited Russian law, which prohibits public associations with “the goals, decisions, and actions of the German and Soviet authorities and military during World War II.” It is also forbidden to question “the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR in liberating the countries of Europe.”
The Smolensk prosecutor’s office accepted the argument, ordering the removal of both decorations on the grounds that the bas-reliefs breached regulations concerning cultural heritage and the commemoration of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War.
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) condemned the decision in a special statement:
“Contrary to the claims of Russian authorities that these decorations are of a Russophobic nature, they were established to commemorate specific historical events and the heroism of soldiers, with their significance relating to the struggle for Poland’s independence, rather than contemporary or national prejudices,” stated the IPN.
The removal of the bas-reliefs did not provoke significant emotional response in Russian media, with coverage typically limited to reporting dry facts. However, there were some misleading comments: “In Poland, Russophobes scream at the top of their lungs: Russians in Smolensk dismantled Polish crosses from the Katyń memorial. Behind these—how should one call them—
bas-reliefs lie not only symbols but an entire ideological war, linked to the Nazi propaganda that Poland presents as truth. This concerns the executed Polish officers. Following Goebbels’ assertions, the Poles maintain that they were executed by Soviet (Russian) soldiers.” (Катынь. Ложь, ставшая
историей)
We should recall that shortly after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, demands to dismantle the Katyń cemetery altogether intensified among Russian communists. Valery Kuznetsov, first secretary of the Communist Party in the Smolensk region and a member of the Central Committee of that party, was among those calling for its removal and for the destruction of Polish symbols such as the Virtuti Militari. and the Cross of the September Campaign…
By. Igor Hrywna
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The Virtuti Militari, established in 1792 by Polish King Stanisław August Poniatowski following the battle fought on June 18, 1792, during the Polish Russian War, is a distinguished military honour awarded for outstanding military service. It is one of the oldest existing military decorations in the world, recognising both soldiers and military units for exceptional bravery.
The Cross of the September Campaign is a military decoration awarded to participants of the defensive war of 1939. It takes the form of a cross inscribed with “1. IX”, “17. IX”, “WRZESIEŃ 1939”, and features an image of an eagle. This decoration serves as a reminder that in 1939, the aggressors were not only Germany but also the Soviet Union, which invaded Poland on September 17, 1939.
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