The presidents of Russia and Poland are expected today to visit the site of the plane crash near Smolensk that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other people one year ago.
The Polish officials were en route to Katyn, near Smolensk, to commemorate the Soviet-era massacre of some 22,000 Polish nationals by the Soviet secret police in 1940.
Today’s ceremony is due to take place amid tensions over a plaque commemorating the disaster.
A plaque, put at the crash site by relatives of Polish victims, called the Katyn massacre genocide. Russia replaced the Polish-language plaque with one mentioning only the plane crash.
Russian officials said the change was made because the law forbids foreign-language memorials.
Kaczynski’s plane crashed in fog on April 10, 2010.
compiled from agency reports