RIA Novosti, Russia
January 17, 2005

POLAND WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER SOVIET SOLDIERS WHO LIBERATED WARSAW 60
YEARS AGO – POLISH DEFENSE MINISTER

WARSAW, January 17 (RIA Novosti’s Leonid Sviridov) – Poland will
always remember Soviet soldiers who liberated Warsaw 60 years ago,
Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told RIA Novosti in an
interview on Monday.

On Monday an official ceremony of laying flowers to the monument on
the memorial cemetery was held in the center of Warsaw.

Here lie the remains of 22,000 Soviet soldiers who died in the
liberation of the Polish capital 60 years ago, in January 1945.

“It is the day of memory of those who liberated Warsaw 60 years ago.
We will always remember the soldiers who set free Warsaw and Poland,”
Mr. Szmajdzinski said.

The Poles will always remember “the 600,000 graves of deceased
soldiers of the great Soviet Union, who did everything possible for
the liberation from the Hitlerite yoke,” the Polish defense minister
said.

Poland remembers these victims and “this is why we are together here
at this memorial today. It was a truly combat brotherhood,” the
stressed.

The RIA Novosti correspondent reports that the ceremony was attended
by Russian ambassador to Poland Nikolai Afanasyevsky, Belarussian
ambassador Pavel Latushko, Armenian ambassador Ashot Ovakimyan, as
well as representatives of the diplomatic missions of Kazakhstan and
Ukraine.

Representatives of the Polish president, Interior Ministry, Veterans
Committee, different public and war veterans organizations,
Poland-East and Poland-Russia societies arrived to honor the memory
of Soviet soldiers who fell 60 years ago in liberating Warsaw from
German Nazi invaders.