Polish President Killed In Plane Crash In Russia, At Least 80 Dead

Horrible, horrible news for the great people of Poland today as the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, was killed amongst many others, including other top Polish officials, in a horrendous plane crash as the Polish aircraft was landing in the Russian city of Smolensk.

From the article at Yahoo News UK:

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other people were killed Saturday when the president's plane crashed on landing in the western Russian city of Smolensk, officials said.

The Smolensk regional governor, Sergei Antufiev, said the plane clipped treetops as it approached to land at an airport outside Smolensk and crashed, breaking into several pieces.

Officials in Warsaw confirmed that Kaczynski was aboard the plane that crashed and Russian television broadcast video shot earlier Saturday of the president and his wife boarding the plane in Warsaw.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Piotr Pszkowski said that the army chief of staff and Deputy Foreign Minsiter Andrzej Kremer were also on board the plane.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev immediately appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the head of a commission to investigate the crash and sent Russia's emergency situations minister, Sergei Shoigu, to the site.

First of all, I want to extend my most heartfelt sympathy to the freedom-loving Polish readers I have here at Holger Awakens. You have lost a great man today and a true leader of freedom. A true ally to the American people.

Now, with that said, I can't help but be skeptical about this crash and to put Putin in charge of the investigation is like putting Ted Bundy in charge of a beauty contest.

At the same time, this has to be a concern for many. As you saw above, not only was the President of Poland killed but also the army chief of staff. This all comes at a time when the U.S. has gone back on its word to protect Poland with a missile defense system and at the same time, Barack Hussein Obama has entered into agreements with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons capabilities. The fact of the matter is this - the relationship between Poland and America, once as strong as they come, has been strained ever since the American people put a Marxist in the White House. Barack Hussein Obama wasn't in power more than a couple of weeks before he totally pissed off the Polish President. I'm sure Obama's condolences to the Polish people will be brief and not heartfelt.

One can only hope that the Polish government has a lion or two to step into these big shoes or that country's very freedom may be at risk. No, this isn't chicken little type rhetoric here - this is the reality of a nation that lost so much to free itself from the domination and tyranny of Communism and today sits perilously close to losing its freedom - it has a hungry bear to its East and a conspirator in the White House to its West.

Polish president killed in plane crash: officials


Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other people were killed Saturday when the president's plane crashed on landing in the western Russian city of Smolensk, officials said.

The Smolensk regional governor, Sergei Antufiev, said the plane clipped treetops as it approached to land at an airport outside Smolensk and crashed, breaking into several pieces.

Russian television broadcast live footage showing the plane's wreckage scattered in a forest with parts of it still on fire.

Russian news agencies reported there were at least 80 people aboard the plane -- some reports said there were as many as 132 people on board -- and Antufiev said no one had survived.

"It clipped the tops of the trees, crashed down and broke into pieces," the governor of the Smolensk region, Sergei Antufiev, told Russia-24 television news network by telephone from Smolensk.

"There were no survivors."

The television pictures showed the plane broken into many pieces, including engines and a huge chunk of the plane's vertical stabilizer caked in mud, strewn over a large area in forest that was blanketed with fog.

Firefighters were dousing water on portions of the plane that were still ablaze while groups of security personnel in camouflage uniforms and clusters of investigators in civilian clothes inspected the wreckage.

The Russian foreign ministry told Interfax news agency that the plane had crashed in heavy fog.

Officials in Warsaw confirmed that Kaczynski was aboard the plane that crashed and Russian television broadcast video shot earlier Saturday of the president and his wife boarding the plane in Warsaw.

Polish foreign ministry spokesman Piotr Pszkowski said that the army chief of staff and Deputy Foreign Minsiter Andrzej Kremer were also on board the plane.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev immediately appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the head of a commission to investigate the crash and sent Russia's emergency situations minister, Sergei Shoigu, to the site.

The aircraft crashed a few hundred metres short of the runway at the Severny airport outside Smolensk, ITAR-TASS news agency reported, quoting rescuers at the site.

The flight data recorders of the plane had not yet been located but experts were on the scene and the search for them was under way, ITAR-TASS said.

Kaczynski, the identical twin brother of former prime minister Jaroslaw, was on his way to attend commemorative ceremonies at the forest of Katyn in western Russia where 22,000 Poles were killed by Soviet troops 70 years ago.

The crash of his plane occurred three days after Putin and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, together attended a memorial for the victims of the massacre at Katyn.

The Putin-Tusk meeting there was seen as a huge symbolic advance in Russia's often thorny relations with Poland.