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The '''Katyń Massacre''' is the name given to the mass murder of 21,768 [[Polish]] army officers and members of the intelligentsia and middle classes by Soviet [[NKVD]] killers at the Katyn Forest in western [[Russia]] and other locations in [[Poland]], [[Belarus]], [[Russia]] and [[Ukraine]]. The killings were directly ordered by [[Stalin]], on the suggestion of his secret police chief [[Lavrenty Beria]], following the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland in 1939. The crime was discovered and announced to the world by the invading [[German]] forces in 1943, and led to the breaking-off of diplomatic relations between the [[London]]-based Polish Government-in-exile and the Soviet Government. The Soviet Union denied responsibility for the murders until 1990.
The '''Katyń Massacre''' is the name given to the mass murder of 21,768 [[Polish]] army officers and members of the intelligentsia and middle classes by Soviet [[NKVD]] killers at the Katyn Forest in western [[Russia]] and other locations in [[Poland]], [[Belarus]], [[Russia]] and [[Ukraine]]. The killings were directly ordered by [[Stalin]], on the suggestion of his secret police chief [[Lavrenty Beria]], following the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland in 1939. The crime was discovered and announced to the world by the invading [[German]] forces in 1943, and led to the breaking-off of diplomatic relations between the [[London]]-based Polish Government-in-exile and the Soviet Government. The leadership of one Allied country fighting the Nazis had essentially liquidated the political and military leadership of another Allied country.
While a wartime [[International Red Cross]] investigation established the murders occurred in Soviet-occupied Poland before the German advance into those territories where they discovered the mass graves, the Supreme Allied prosecutors and judges at the [[Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal]] assented to Soviet demands that the war crime be included in the indictment, for which the defendants were convicted, along with all the other charges of [[genocide]].
The Soviet Union denied responsibility for the murders until 1990. In 2010, the [[Duma]] of the [[Russian Federation]] officially condemned the crime and apologized to Poland.
== Background ==
== Background ==