24 Injured In Warsaw After Russia, Poland Fans Clash

After the nasty incidents before the Poland-Russia match at Euro 2012, you’d have hoped that nothing happened during the match to inflame the fans’ collective tensions. We’ve already had seven injuries and a half-century of arrests over the fighting before the match, so it’d have been nice if the Russian fans could have avoided anything provocative.

Yeah, they didn’t.

The reported casualty toll from the fighting between Poland and Russia fans ahead of their Group A Euro 2012 match continues to rise. Initial reports had three people hurt; now that number is up to seven (although reports of a death have been denied by Warsaw police):

Tear gas is pretty bad news, I’d say. The rioting has apparently calmed down, but the police are going to have to be very very careful to avoid any sort of flare-up after the match, especially if one side is badly beaten. The fighting was sparked by Poland fans attacking a thousands-strong march to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Russian independence from the USSR, and that there’d be an incident is wholly unsurprising considering the long history of conflict between the two countries.

We had only heard reports of the fighting in Warsaw between Poland and Russia fans, but now there’s video coming out... and, well, it’s not pleasant.

That’s ugly, and people are getting hurt pretty badly out there. It’s also a situation that was completely avoidable. The fact that violence would occur if Russian fans were allowed to march in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Russia Day through Warsaw was eminently predictable, and said march should never have been allowed.

Whoever scheduled Russia vs. Poland on Russia Day and then allowed Russia fans to hold a march through Warsaw is a pretty big idiot. Nobody could ever see that one going well, and it hasn’t - three people have been injured after a clash between the marchers and what Russia Today are describing as a ‘mob of Polish youths’.

The police had to fire warning shots and deploy water cannons in an attempt to break up the fighting, which isn’t even the first unfortunate event of the day. Polish fans attacked a cafe full of Russian fans earlier in the day, using stones and smoke grenades, although they were driven off before police arrived.