Article by Marek Pyza and Marcin Wikło

The Russians are declaring full transparency in their cooperation with Polish prosecutors, but we have no doubts that those are empty words. The list of matters still unresolved and increasingly less likely to ever be resolved is getting longer. The list is topped by return of the wreck. During the investigators’ visits to Smolensk, they are prohibited from touching any element of the plane and from using their own scanning equipment; there are not allowed to participate in the examination of foreign experts. We have obtained photographs of the wreckage of the Polish Tupolev that is kept hidden by the Russians. This is all that remains of the machine which crashed in Smolensk on 10 April 2010. These are the first photographs of what remains of the government plane in several years.

Both rooms where Polish prosecutors worked in September 2018 and this May can be seen in the photographs. The aluminium shed erected on a wooden structure, to which side walls (some made of tarpaulin) were also added over time, is where the largest elements of the Tupolev – shattered wings, wheels, ripped starboards and ports, as well as remains of the engines – are being stored. The large dark green hangar is a solid structure, but unsorted heaps of junk are all that can be seen inside. Tangled wires here, something resembling the remains of the plating there. And, finally, the doors. Arranged in an even row, some are only muddy, but some are greatly fragmented; that was probably the element which supposedly ‘shot out’ of the fuselage when the plane was still in flight and pierced the ground at full speed. The pile of black bags are wrapped seats. The cardboard boxes contain various things, such as the TU-154M’s recorders.

ABSURD SUPERVISION

Even if the Polish prosecutors were hoping for decent working conditions in Smolensk, that hope pretty much died before they even entered the makeshift shed. In October, the investigators visited the site for the third time already, but the unreasonably exaggerated Russian precautions had not changed one bit. First, they had to undergo a (detailed and awkward) body search and enter a dressing room. They had to wear boot guards, gloves and tight white hooded overalls. They had to be zipped up to the neck, which the Russians were very scrupulous about. In photographs, this creates the illusion of a professional examination, as if in a sterile laboratory, instead of a musty barrack. After that, they had to deal with an X-ray, metal detector, two types of spectrometer (to check for explosives) and two electron capture detectors.

A photographic documentation, which was very extensive, containing as many as several thousand photographs, was already created during the first visits. Every time, it was the same: a Polish investigator would point at an element and a Russian photographer would take a picture. Only some of the parts of the wreck could be picked up, but that was also done by Russians. This May, many panoramic photographs were taken, which are to be used to create a spatial image of the interior, but that is not what the Poles had in mind. This time, there was finally supposed to be an opportunity to use a Russian 3D scanner (the prosecutor’s office had planned to scan and enter every element into the database), but it happened to be in use somewhere else again. It is worth noting that in spite of the loud declarations of extensive cooperation, that cooperation is hedged with a great many exceptions. Using the equipment brought from Poland is out of the question, so our scanners and drones had not even been taken out of the bags.

The photographs taken by us and shown on the wPolsce.pl TV channel in September 2018 remain the only publicly shown photographs from a drone flying along the approach path of the Tupolev to the Smolensk North Airport.

The initial plan of the heads of the First Investigative Team of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office assumed that each element would be assigned its individual barcode. The Russians categorically refused, which is all the more surprising given the fact that they themselves had marked some of the shrapnel in quite a distinctive manner. Lopsided inscriptions in yellow paint are noticeable. This is absurd, especially given the scrupulous initial inspection of the Polish experts – paintbrushes and paints, which contain many chemical compounds, would most likely not pass the inspection.

Every step of the way, the Polish prosecutors were accompanied by a sizeable group of representatives of the Investigative Committee of Russia. The hangar and shed were also outfitted – possibly permanently – with monitoring and quite good lighting. Every action of the Poles was filmed by Russian cameramen, and during their previous visits, the ‘excellent cooperation’ was also shown by carefully selected local media. When we described the first visit a year ago, we called what our investigators had found there “Putin’s Smolensk Theatre”. Today, we can state even more categorically: both on site and in correspondence, the cooperation is a pretence.

WHAT THE RUSSIANS ARE HIDING

We will not even discuss the fact that the Polish prosecutors demand the return of the wreck at every opportunity. We know Moscow’s answer all too well: “You are not getting the plane back until we finish our own investigation”. However, no real investigation is being done in Russia into that matter. So, this is a blatant farce. The situation is similar in many more detailed aspects. On 10 April 2010 and 18 November 2011, the Polish prosecutor’s office requested the documents on the Smolensk North Airport and on the instructions given to the servicemen welcoming the Polish planes in 2010. In January 2017, the Russians announced that copies of those materials were being made. However, they have not been released to this day.

In May 2017, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office requested some materials, such as copies of several opinions of the Moscow Expertise Centre (pertaining to genetics and autopsy), copies of the materials handed over by the Interstate Aviation Committee to the Investigative Committee of Russia, copies of the video recording of the interrogation of one of the witnesses and transcript of the interrogation of another one. The investigators are still waiting for them to this day.

In September 2018, they also asked for some materials, such as the decisions of the Russian Investigative Committee on not returning the wreck to Poland, as well as the medical documentation on Nikolai Bodin’s memory loss. His plot is where the birch which the TU-154M supposedly brushed against stood. The prosecutors wished to interrogate him when they were in Smolensk in 2018, but then it turned out that… he had lost his memory as a result of some mysterious accident. And those materials still have not been sent.

Two months later, they asked for more materials, such as photographs and videos of the delineation of sectors on the site. This June, the materials they asked for included photographs of the wreck inspection performed by the Russians in February 2018. This request has also been unfulfilled by the Russians.

And here is the biggest curiosity. In 2013, Polish military public prosecutors, together with the Russians, were inspecting the wreckage of the plane, in particular elements of the seats of the TU-154M. Parts of the seats were also cut out (traces of explosives were found on many of them). The entire thing was documented by both the Russians and the Poles. Interestingly, even the photographs taken by our specialists remained in Smolensk back then. The Russians handed over everything back at the site to Lt Col Karol Kopczyk, who was the head of the military investigation (today, he is a member of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office’s team). However, the disk with the data later turned out to be… damaged. Moscow has been ignoring calls to resend the material for six years.

In the most recent legal aid request sent by the National Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Russians, we are demanding a great many other documents which should have been sent to Poland a long time ago – such as the plane elements (e.g. power units and left wing) inspection reports of 2011–2012, results of the examination of the hermetic sealing from the torn-off wing, which the Russians had collected for laboratory tests, as well as the results of other analyses.

Investigators are still trying in vain to obtain data from the test flight around the airport performed by the Russians using a special plane right after the disaster (the Poles were not allowed to participate in that) – it tested the operation of the airport equipment, as well as photographed the site and the area beneath the approach route to the runway. They have been similarly unsuccessful in obtaining the video of said test flight recorded in the so-called control tower.

That is not all. We were completely astonished by the information that the transcripts of the hearings of many of the Russian soldiers appointed (by an order of the unit commander of the Smolensk airport) to be on duty on 10 April 2010 have not been delivered to this day. Specifically, those were two Starshy Praporshchiks who were part of the Air Traffic Control Group (their names – Ignatov and Yegorov – have not previously been revealed in Poland) as well as 38 other people in charge of securing the area, traffic signs, fire prevention, meteorological work, lighting operation and radar operation.

Were those people at the airport during the disaster? What were they doing there? What do they know about the accident and the work of their colleagues? Those are but a few of the many questions which the Russians are refusing to answer.

BATTLE FOR THE WRECK

How long will this ludicrous game between the Russians and the Polish Public Prosecutor’s Office go on? Unofficially, we have learned that the investigators are fed up with pretending that the Russians can be cooperated with. Everything that could have been done in Smolensk has already been done. Trips similar to the three most recent ones are mostly pointless, as they would not further the investigation. Unless the Russians return the wreck or at least allow it to be inspected by foreign experts and to be scanned by Polish specialised equipment, taking thousand more traditional photographs is pointless.

The prosecutor’s office has no tools to influence Moscow’s decision. What we need is the involvement of the state authorities as well as the use of contacts and international pressure. A year ago, the Council of Europe adopted a resolution which urged Russia to return the Polish property. “The continuing refusal of the Russian authorities to return the wreckage and other evidence constitutes an abuse of rights and has fuelled speculation on the Polish side that Russia has something to hide,” states the document.

“What has happened to that resolution? Why has the matter completely died down?” asks one of the prosecutors rhetorically. We have learned that an emissary of the Council of Europe appointed to mediate between Poland and Russia went to Warsaw a few months ago. He is a former leader of one of the EU member states. Have those negotiations had any effect? We talk about this unofficially with a highly ranked Polish diplomat. “We are making many efforts of which we definitely would not want to speak aloud yet. The matter is too delicate to publicise. I can only confirm that the Council of Europe is the organisation where we are making intense effort,” says the official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Who is at fault for the fact that the wreck of the TU-154M is where it is in its current state? After all, the blame lies neither with the current government nor the National Public Prosecutor’s Office, who has been conducting the investigation since 2016, but with the Polish government who did not demand the return of the wreckage of the plane in April 2010 or in subsequent months. The narrative at the time was that joint investigation was ongoing (de facto, there was never such a thing) and Donald Tusk’s cabinet – with Minister of Defence Bogdan Klich, Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski, Minister of Health Ewa Kopacz – and President Bronisław Komorowski wanted to avoid irritating the Russians by making any demands of them at all costs. Even when the Interstate Aviation Committee completed its work and published a mendacious report, the government did not request the return of the wreck in spite of the fact that it held the tool enabling it to do so – Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, which had been enforced by the Russians as the legal basis for the investigation.

The black boxes were left in Moscow “until the investigation and judicial proceedings are completed” based upon the memorandum signed by Minister of Domestic Affairs and Head of the Polish Committee Jerzy Miller. In 2014, the Dutch government demonstrated how it is done – they immediately requested the wreck of the plane with Dutch citizens on board that had been shot down above Eastern Ukraine, transported it (including via Poland) to their airbase, established an international expert group to investigate the disaster and began reconstruction of the plane. 15 months after the attack, the Dutch announced the results of their work.

Since 2016, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office has already fixed many of the mistakes made by the government and military investigators between 2010 and 2015. They exhumed the victims as well as employed Western specialists with longstanding experience in the investigation of aviation accidents and the best European criminology labs. One of them (the one in Belfast) has already completed their analyses. The one in Rome has just received the final batch of the samples. The English are also finishing their work, having found – as we informed in “Sieci” in March – traces of explosives on many of the samples.

Therefore, the derisive “Where’s the wreck?” question asked by the opposition every now and then is an extremely cheap trick. It is essentially “thanks” to them that the wreck can only be seen in some Russian photographs of little legal value today.

Marek Pyza, Marcin Wikło