Polish prosecutors probe an exhibition of Russian armor from Ukraine that contained live explosives
Polish prosecutors probe an exhibition of Russian armor from Ukraine that contained live explosives
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Prosecutors in Poland said Tuesday they are considering whether to open a criminal investigation into an open-air exhibition in 2022 of damaged Russian military vehicles after one of them was found to contain live explosives.
The exhibits — a damaged T-72 tank, a self-propelled howitzer and elements of Russian missile systems — were brought to Poland from the battlefields in Ukraine a few months after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
Live grenades and ammunition were found inside one of the exhibits during stocktaking and had apparently been there ever since their battles in Ukraine. Since the exhibition, the military vehicles have been held in secure storage.
The vehicles were brought to Poland by the previous government, which was voted out at the end of 2023. The stocktaking was ordered by the new management of the Government Agency of Strategic Reserves appointed by the current government.
The agency filed a notice this month with prosecutors in Warsaw, seeking a criminal investigation into those responsible for failing to carry out proper security checks on the vehicles.
“Imagination is suggesting what could have happened if there was a tragic development” and an explosion, Jan Jalowczyk of the strategic reserve agency told The Associated Press. “There were huge numbers of people at these exhibitions, families with children.”
Endangering public security carries a prison sentence of up to eight years. Sappers have secured, rather than neutralized the explosives in case of an investigation.
The exhibition “For Our Freedom and Yours” was organized by Poland’s previous government, jointly with Ukrainian authorities, with the intention of boosting Ukraine’s morale by showing that Russia, which had attacked months earlier, could be defeated. It was shown in Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk and during a military equipment fair in Kielce. There were plans to show it in Brussels.
The prosecutors are also checking allegations that under the previous management the agency wrongly spent some 700 million zlotys ($176 million) on having the vehicles transported across Poland, while transport is not within its mandate.
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Associated Press
