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MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made an unprecedented gesture of goodwill to Poland on Wednesday by attending a memorial ceremony for 22,000 Poles executed by Soviet secret police during World War II. But hours later, he soured the mood by offering a controversial justification for the massacres.
Putin said Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the atrocity as revenge for the death of Red Army soldiers in Polish prisoner of war camps in 1920. Putin said 32,000 soldiers under Stalin’s command had died of hunger and disease.
The Polish side had no response to this suggestion.
