Polish-Russian relations are showing outward signs of strain following the weekend’s memorial to commemorate last year’s Smolensk plane crash. Lech Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, refused to attend, and was apparently supported in his snubbing by a small core of supporters who see Prime Minister Donald Tusk as a traitor for siding with Moscow.  To make matters worse, a memorial plaque at the site of the crash has been edited to remove a previous reference to the Katyn massacre, which Kaczynski was on his way to commemorate when his plane crashed. The official reason for the change is that the plaque wasn’t bilingual before, but certain commentators don’t like the implication that the plaque was changed to remove all hint of Russian blame.

RIA Novosti last week ran an interesting piece suggesting a few reasons for the current remaining barbs between the two, despite an overall massive improvement in relations.  The report focused on long-standing Polish bitterness towards Russia, which it describes as having reached an ‘Arctic chill‘ during the time of the Kaczynski twins.