Today marks the anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, a tragic event in which thousands of Poles were killed.

In the spring of 1940, about 22,000 Polish officers, soldiers and policemen interned in Soviet prisons and camps were murdered upon the orders of the highest authorities of communist Russia.

A total of 14,587 prisoners of war – officers and policemen – from the camps at Kozelsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov were murdered, as were 7,300 prisoners arrested in the areas occupied by the USSR.