WARSAW, Poland, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka has pledged to fully investigate a World War II massacre of Polish officers and civilians by the Soviet Union.
The massacre, originally and erroneously blamed on the Nazis, involved the systematic killing by Soviet forces of thousands of Poles at Katyn and elsewhere following the Nazi-Soviet pact that divided Poland between Hitler and Stalin, and allowed World War II to begin in September 1939.
Nearly 22,000 Polish intellectuals, priests and army officers were killed during the massacres.
The PAP news agency quoted Belka as raising the prospect of indicting the perpetrators when the investigation is completed.
Most of the victims' families say they want justice but are not looking for financial compensation.
Russian officialdom has all but abandoned efforts begun in the 1990s to uncover the crimes of the Soviet era. A Russian investigation into the massacre of the Poles was discontinued last September.
President Vladimir Putin was himself a KGB agent operating in Germany in the 1980s.
