’’In my opinion, the lack of a possibility of the Polish president giving a speech, the one who is going to speak about victims, one who is going to speak about ALL Polish victims of the Holocaust AND the Second World War, is so extremely important, that the lack of such a speech is not only a blow to the Polish interests, not only a huge disservice to the memory of those Righteous among the Nations, who were saving Jews, and some of them heroically lost their lives, often alongside their whole families, just because they were saving their Jewish neighbours; but foremost it is tinting the historical truth with half truths.
I do not see a reason why the presidents of Russia, Germany, France and representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States, in such a place, on such occasions, in connection with this important anniversary, would be allowed to speak, while the president of Poland would not be allowed to speak. This is particularly important in the light of the recent Russian narrative, and in particular from the mouth of the president of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin, we hear allegations addressed towards Poland that are completely against the historical truth and they are, and I have no doubts in this, an attempt to humiliate Poles and rewrite the history of the Second World War.
The lack of a possibility to speak there, in this matter, I consider an infringement on Polish interests and that is why I did raise the matter during the Cabinet Council. I am grateful to all participants of the Cabinet Council, I thank you Mr. Prime Minister, that you all expressed deep understanding in this. We, unanimously, are in such a position, that I will travel to take part in those celebrations only in the case that I will be scheduled to make a speech. If not, the Polish president is not going to take part in those celebrations’’- says Andrzej Duda, President of Poland.

„We are not allowing to be provoked by the Russian Federation, unfortunately with the lead of Mr. President Putin. In my statement a few days ago, the text of which was consulted extensively with Mr. President on each step, we had shown how the historical events unfolded about 80 years ago. We also had shown today’s context of those Russian losses like the Northstream II, connected with Belarus, with a resolution of the European Parliament on the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which, as Mr. President remarked today, should have been called the Hitler-Stalin pact, as it is the case in historiography of the majority of other countries, derived from the names of leaders of Soviet Russia and Hitler’s Germany in 1939”– says Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland.