Polish Probe Into Kaczynski's Jet Crash Turns Into 'Endless Fantasy Process' - Zakharova

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st August, 2020) The probe into President Lech Kaczynski's jet crash near Smolensk has turned into a never-ending "fantasy process" of modern Poland, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman said on Saturday.

Earlier in the week, the Polish commission in charge of a repeat probe into the incident alleged that trotyl, the explosion of which allegedly caused the crash, had been planted on the plane during repairs in Russia. The claims were published in an interim report of the commission led by former Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz. The document reiterates that the jet crashed as a result of an explosion because "such damage could not have been inflicted" only by the collision of the plane with the ground.

"This repeat probe with its 'interim results' has become a real Yoknapatawpha [a fictional county created by American writer William Faulkner] of modern Poland," Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook.

"Reality is deadly intertwined with fiction, turning into an endless fantasy process," she said.

The diplomat recommended reading the transcript of cockpit conversations between the pilots of the Polish presidential plane.

"And if the nerves are really strong, it is better to listen to [the recording]," she added, attaching the relevant link.

The Russian Investigative Committee has repeatedly rejected Poland's account of events, saying that no traces of explosives had been found on the plane's wreckage and the victims' remains.

On April 10, 2010, a Polish jet airliner carrying Kaczynski, his wife and officials crashed amid heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near Smolensk. All 96 people aboard died. The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee said that the flight crew's decision to not reroute the plane to another airdrome, despite bad weather conditions, led to the crash.

Poland's investigation into the causes behind the crash has been ongoing since the incident, and the country previously suggested that Russia might have been behind the crash, something vehemently denied by Moscow.