Russia has protested plans to demolish a Soviet war memorial in Poland.
Accusing the Warsaw government of escalating its "war on monuments," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on July 10 that “there have been at least 10 instances of desecration or demolition of Soviet war memorials in Poland" during the past year.
The latest protest concerns a memorial in the town of Pieniezno dedicated to Soviet General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, who was fatally wounded at the site in 1945.
Moscow says the demolition of war monuments in Poland violates a 1994 agreement between the two countries.
The Polish Foreign Ministry said that under treaty terms, war cemeteries and burial grounds are under the care of the state. But "it's up to local authorities to decide what monuments they want," the ministry added.
For Russia, the Red Army liberated Poland from Nazi occupation, but many Poles see the Soviet Union as an aggressor that controlled the country for decades after World War II.
