Tsikhanouskaya: demolition of Polish soldiers cemetery in Belarus is an outrage

A cemetery of Polish soldiers fallen in 1944, located in Mikulishki, Grodno Region, has been demolished by order of Belarusian authorities. Not even one out of 22 crosses which stood at the memorial site has been spared.

"The demolition of a cemetery of Polish soldiers in Mikulishki is an outrage. It came just before the anniversary of the operation where the Home Army fought to liberate Vilnius from German occupation," leader of Belarusian opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said in a tweet on Thursday.

"I would like to express our friendship with Poland & support for Poles in Belarus," Tsikhanouskaya added.

Poland's Ambassador to Belarus Artur Michalski - who has been expelled from Minsk by Belarusian government in October 2020 - thanked Tsikhanouskaya for her support.

"Thank you @Tsihanouskaya for these important words. Thank you for your solidarity" - Michalski tweeted.

In a statement released on Tuesday (July 5), Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was "outraged at the reports of a demolition by order of the Belarusian authorities of a cemetery of Polish soldiers in Mikulishki, Grodno Region".

"In 1944, soldiers of the 3rd and the 6th Brigades of the Home Army, an integral part of the Polish Army, participants in the Operation Gate of Dawn, fought to liberate Vilnius from German occupation and paid the highest price for it. It is particularly appalling that the Belarusian side has resorted to this unprecedented attack shortly before an anniversary of the operation’s launch on 7 July," the MFA added.

"This particularly disgraceful event is an example of how the current authorities of Belarus are violating all the commitments the country has made about the memorial sites in its territory. The act resembles the darkest episodes in the history of communism, and given the earlier accounts of the devastation of Polish war graves, it can only be construed as done on purpose in order to further degrade the mutual relations between Poland and Belarus," we read in the statement.

The ministry also stressed that "the liquidation of Polish tombs and memorials is yet another example of the Minsk regime’s actions targeting the Poles in Belarus, and the most blatant one".

"We strongly condemn this anti-Polish campaign of the Belarusian authorities having as its aim the elimination of Polish traces in Belarus," Polish officials underscored.

"The destruction of war graves will neither change history nor wipe away the memory of the past. It only demonstrates to the world – yet again – the barbarism of the current regime," Poland's MFA concluded.

Asked about the issue on Wednesday (July 6), MFA spokesperson Łukasz Jasina said the ministry was considering imposing further sanctions against the Lukashenko regime. "We have a few days of very serious thinking filled with worries about the remaining quarters. There are hundreds of these quarters, both in the form of a cemetery as well as war quarters, and we have a very limited options to take care of them at the moment," Jasina said.