Warsaw calls for calm over Russian march
Reuters - Monday 11 June 2012, 13:01
Warsaw authorities appealed for
calm on Monday ahead of a planned march by around 5,000 Russian
fans to Warsaw stadium to watch their team's Euro 2012 Group A
match against Poland, which could be a potential flashpoint of
the tournament.
The two neighbours have always had complicated relations
strained by historical animosity and the Soviet domination after
World War II.
A plane crash that killed Poland's president and 95 others
in Russia two years ago first brought the nations together, only
to push them apart due to disputes over who was responsible.
Around 5,000 Russian fans wanted to march to the stadium on
Tuesday and their representatives told Warsaw officials they
wanted only to celebrate "the festival of football", the
director of Warsaw's security and crisis unit said.
"I've asked them for peaceful behaviour, not to provoke
anyone in the streets," Ewa Gawor, in charge of security in
Warsaw, told a news conference. "We want this festival to be
peaceful. We have had such assurances, nevertheless we will be
watchful."
UEFA has told Warsaw to expect around 20,000 Russian fans in
the city, spread across the stadium and the fan zone.
A Warsaw police spokesman said they were fully prepared but
declined to give precise numbers of how many officers would be
on the streets.
Russia coach Dick Advocaat and the country's soccer chief
laid a wreath in Warsaw on Sunday to commemorate the victims of
the plane crash in an attempt to defuse tensions.
A movement led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ex-president's
twin and leader of Poland's main opposition party, questions
whether the crash was an accident and says Moscow may be at
least partially to blame.
Poles also fear the Russian fans may display Soviet era
symbols that remind them of the 44 years under Moscow's
domination behind the Iron Curtain.
"Every little thing brings back all the historical
grievances which have not been fully resolved," said Andrzej
Rychard, a sociologist at the Polish Academy of Science.
Alexander Shprygin, head of the Russian fan association
said: "Our walk has nothing to do with politics, fans have
nothing to do with politics. All we want is to show support for
our team, we do not want any provocations."
A group of Russian and Polish fans also laid wreaths
together at a cemetery for Soviet soldiers and at the monument
to the 1944 Warsaw uprising, Poland's PAP agency reported.
EARLIER TROUBLES
Russian fans displayed illegal banners and threw fireworks
during the team's opening match against the Czech Republic in
Wroclaw on Friday and UEFA has launched disciplinary proceedings
against the Russian FA (RFS).
The Russian FA has since appealed to its fans to behave.
Beyond isolated incidents, the tournament has so far been
mostly calm.
Poland's interior minister said that out of 905,000 fans
attending games at stadiums or in the fan zones, only 72 were
arrested, including 41 local fans and 10 Russians.
Tensions are also growing between Russian and Ukrainians in
the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, which hosts three Group B
games. Russian fans scuffled briefly with Ukrainians outside the
fan zone after the side's 4-1 win over the Czechs on Friday.
Lviv is in the western and predominantly ethnic Ukrainian
part of the country where Russians are identified with the
Soviet control from 1939 to 1991.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi denied there were tensions, telling a
news conference on Sunday; "We all have fun together - Russian,
Ukrainians, Poles. I wish the same for other cities".
He said he was not planning extra police for the fan zone on
Tuesday and blamed Friday's problems on fans who had drunk too
much beer.
Russian and Ukrainian nationalists exchanged blows in Lviv
on May 9, 2011 during ceremonies to mark the end of World War
Two. The trouble started when the Russians marched with a
Communist flag, which the Ukrainians associate with what they
see as the Soviet occupation of their land.