– I want to thank everyone who remembers and everyone who today will pay tribute to these great figures of our political scene, our social life, great Poles, great patriots, who then [...] were flying to pay tribute to Polish officers murdered in Katyn. To, once again, but with their own personal presence, give the lie to Soviet propaganda, which for years propagated the so-called Katyń lie – said President Andrzej Duda in Krakow.

– It was a mission of extraordinary state and historical importance, they knew it, and that is why they were flying there, that is why they undertook the hardship of this journey. Unfortunately, they perished and never returned. Nothing will ever repair this loss, neither for their closest loved ones first and foremost, nor for the Republic. And this is a pain that, I think, for many, especially the closest ones, does not fade, despite the 15 years that have passed – he continued.

– Today, during [...] holy mass [...] Father Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski said a beautiful sentence about gratitude. About this gratitude that we all owe them, on the one hand in the state sense, for their service to the Republic [...] but also thanks for all that we could draw from them and all that we could learn from them – he went on to say.

– The Archbishop mentioned me in particular, all the collaborators of President Lech Kaczyński, and what he conveyed to us then. This is a great value, I think, also, thanks to which, on the one hand, thanks to the work begun, and on the other hand, thanks to the fact that it is being significantly continued, Poland has changed so much over these last 15 years and our reality has also changed, and today Poland is a country that is increasingly prosperous and I can confidently say, also increasingly strong – he added.