The missile fell on the necropolis during Tuesday's shelling. – Russian missile almost destroyed Polishof the Bykivnia War Cemetery near Kiev – Bohdan Netreba, the head of the Bykowniańskie Mogiły complex, informed on Sunday.
The incident occurred at approximately 6:30 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. in Poland). The rocket that was flying towards Kiev, was shot down by air defense. Its fragments fell on the forest in the village of Bykownia, where cemetery of victims of communism there is also a Polish necropolis.
The debris caused a fire
Fragments of the rocket along with a warhead with a 700-kilogram explosive charge, fell 30-50 meters from the Polish cemetery.
– If the warhead had exploded here, there would have been nothing left of the monument. Thank God it did not explode, it only caught fire in the forest – said Netreba. According to his account, the flames were quickly extinguished by the facility's employees and the fire brigade.
On the forest road leading to the cemetery, you can see burnt grass and charred tree trunks. Some of them have broken tops. The place where the fire was extinguished is still marked with red and white tapes.
Cemetery in Bykivnia. Graves of victims of the Katyn massacre
Polish War Cemetery in Kiev-Bykivnia It was established in 2011–2012 on the initiative of the Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom.
This is the fourth necropolis where the victims are buried. Katyn crime, earlier, cemeteries were established in Kharkov, Katyn Forest and Mednoye.
In Bykivnia, there are remains in mass graves 3,435 Polish officers of the Polish Army and representatives of other services, who were murdered by the NKVD on Stalin's orders in 1940.
The Polish necropolis is part of a larger complex that contains a total of 150 thousand victims of communism of various nationalities.