President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday turned over scores of volumes fr om an investigation into the Katyn massacre to his Polish counterpart, a move underlining Moscow's new willingness to repair long-troubled relations with Warsaw.
The World War II massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens by Soviet secret police has been an issue that soured relations between the countries for decades.
After decades of blaming the 1940 massacre on invading Nazi troops, the Soviet Union in 1990 acknowledged responsibility, part of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost initiatives. But officials refused to refer to it as a genocide attempt — a designation that Poland had sought because international law generally considers that genocide has no statute of lim itations.
The Soviet Union began a criminal investigation the same year, but it was closed in 2004. The chief military prosecutor later said the case was closed because the killings were not found to be genocide.
The 67 volumes that Medvedev turned over to acting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski are files from that investigation. Polish historians have agitated for access to the case files, and Medvedev indicated that there was information to come.
"Work on the criminal case, including the declassifying of material, will be continued by my order," Medvedev said, RIA-Novosti reported.
Komorowski expressed gratitude.
"The Katyn crime, the Katyn lie, is a stumbling block between our countries. The truth about Katyn is an ordeal experienced jointly by both Poland and Russia. It may serve as a good basis for the further development of relations between our countries," he said, Itar-Tass reported.
Katyn inadvertently drew world attention a month ago when Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 other Poles died in a plane crash in Russia while coming to attend a Katyn commemoration.
The plane crashed on April 10 as it was coming in for a landing in Smolensk in heavy fog. Preliminary investigation details appear to point at pilot error, but it remains unclear why the plane attempted to land in such poor conditions.
Medvedev told Komorowski on Saturday that final investigation results would be made public.
On Sunday, hundreds of people rallied in Warsaw to express their discontent over the pace of the Russian-led investigation into the crash.
Meanwhile, Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw, said Sunday that he hoped that the plane crash would help bring about a historic change in relations between Poland and Russia.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is now running to succeed his brother as president, issued a video addressed to Russians expressing words of warmth for the powerful neighbor.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Russian friends," Kaczynski said, beginning his three-minute message. "We thank you for every tear, for every lit candle, for every moving word.
"There are moments in history that can change everything, that can change the course of history. I hope — and this hope is shared by millions of Poles, among them those who supported Lech Kaczynski — that such a moment is coming."
The clip, which has Russian subtitles, was presented at a news conference in Warsaw by members of Kaczynski's nationalist and conservative Law and Justice party and was posted on YouTube.
Kaczynski delivers his message sitting at a table in what appears to be a family sitting room and wears the same attire he has donned in public since the plane crash: a black jacket and black tie.
He said that his brother was supposed to have attended the elaborate Victory Day parade Sunday in Moscow — adding that "my beloved brother" would have looked with pride on the Polish soldiers who marched and would have remembered the millions of Russian soldiers who died defeating Nazi Germany.