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WARSAW -- The conflict, misunderstanding and blood letting whichhas marked the history of Poland and its larger eastern neighborRussia at times its master is weighing-in heavily at Euro2012. Poland and Russia face-off in Warsaw on Tuesday, in a match that isdrawing more concern about what will happen off the pitch than onit. Russian fans in their thousands plan to march through Warsaw toarrive at the match venue Poland's brand new national stadium. In numbers unseen in the Polish capital since World War II, theRussians will also be marching on their June 12 national day. With pockets of Poland and Russia fans having a reputation forviolence, concern is running high that clashes could erupt evenbefore the opening whistle blows. To Russian political analyst Fedor Loukianov, football is like amagnifying glass for bilateral relations and simply brings tensionswhich are already exist into greater focus. Our history is marked by 400 years of conflict: Poland was oncean empire like Russia, then Russia took part in four partitions ofPoland. If we add the woes of communism and World War II to that,things become very complicated indeed, he told AFP. For some Poles, very recent history is the most touchy subject. The April 10, 2010 crash of a Polish presidential jet in Smolensk,western Russia, in which president Lech Kaczynski perished is seenas one of the most tragic episodes in Poland's turbulent history. The Tupolev 154 plane carrying Kaczynski, his wife and scores ofPoland's leaders came down during an attempt to land at afog-veiled airport. The Kaczynski-led delegation was on its way to Katyn to commemoratethe 70th anniversary of a massacre of thousands of Polish officersby the Soviet secret police during World War II. An official investigation has pinned the blame on the Polish pilotsand the derelict state of the Smolensk airport, but that has notconvinced Kaczynski's surviving identical twin Jaroslaw theleader of Poland's main right wing Law and Justice (PiS)parliamentary opposition party. He and his followers mostly elderly and deeply Catholic, with aclear memory of the communist era in Poland when it was Moscow thatcalled the shots have long regarded the crash with suspicion. In a gesture of reconciliation Sunday, Russian Football Union chiefSergey Fursenko unexpectedly lay a large floral wreath at the footof a memorial plaque dedicated to Kaczynski at Poland'spresidential palace. Football is outside politics, Fursenko said. With thistradition we are supporting people and demonstrating our position.We are just footballers, he added. Fears about a confrontation between Poles and Russian fans at thesensitive memorial had surfaced when the Russian side chose to stayat a luxury hotel next to it and the presidential palace. Russian leaders President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister DmitryMedvedev stayed away from Russia's Euro 2012 debut in Wroclaw,southern Poland, where their team clobbered the Czech Republic inGroup A 4-1. Nor are they expected in Warsaw on Tuesday for the match in thestadium built on the east bank of the Vistula river cutting thoughthe Polish capital where Soviet forces waited for the Nazis todecimate the Polish resistance during the tragic 1944 WarsawUprising one of the darkest battles of World War II. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Welding Manipulator , China Beam Welding Line for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits CNC Cutting Machine.
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