The 2012 European Football Championship was remembered not only for the brilliant victory of the Spanish team, but also for the riots of the fans. During the tournament, numerous skirmishes were recorded, the most important of which took place on the same day as the confrontation between Russia and Poland. Furthermore, the fans did not even wait for the match itself.
The massacre took place under the enormous Russian tricolor.
Russia Day in Warsaw
At Euro 2012, the Russian national team was in the group with one of the host countries of the tournament – Poland. Relations between the fans of the two teams have always been tense, to put it mildly, so their meeting in the tournament was initially prepared with greater attention to avoid a serious conflict.
This was doubly difficult due to the timing of the confrontation. Ironically, the Poles were supposed to welcome the Russians in Warsaw on June 12, i.e. Russia Day. The fans who came to the Polish capital had no intention of ignoring the national holiday, which meant that the famous tricolor had been visible on the streets of the Polish capital throughout the day. Unfortunately, this very fact could serve as a provocation for local fans, not to mention the Soviet symbols.
The latter, however, the organizers of the patriotic march promised not to use. As a result, the authorities approved the action organized by the Russians and allowed them to march in an orderly column through the city to the stadium. The security of the fans was in charge of the police: in total, that day about six thousand law enforcement officers were guarding the foreigners. It is noteworthy that the Prime Minister of Poland even called on his compatriots to join the action, but the unity of the peoples did not even come close.
Photo source: Getty Images
At first, however, the march went off without incident. Fans with national flags left the Polish Army Museum, as prescribed by the city administration. The road to the arena from there was only about three kilometers; It seemed that the Russians could overcome this distance quite quickly… However, after half an hour, their plans were interrupted.
Massacre on the bridge
The first clashes in the streets of Warsaw began around eight in the afternoon. The Polish fanatics surrounding the Russian column began to break the cordon. The local ultras appeared to have deliberately chosen the location of the attack. The fans pounced on their rivals when they crossed the bridge over the Vistula: from there there was practically nowhere to run.
The police could not cope with the pressure of hooligans shouting anti-Russian slogans. The national holiday turned into a terrible massacre in a matter of minutes. Fights began to break out in the crowd, often quite brutal: fans smashed each other’s faces into blood. According to eyewitnesses, the Polish ultras attacked the Russians almost indiscriminately, often beating their victims in crowds.
Photo source: RIA Novosti
Soon the police had to really intervene. Polish skinheads did not hesitate to fight with law enforcement officers, so the latter also used force: batons, water cannons and even tear gas. There was simply no time to remove the wounded Russians from the column: by this time there was already a row of beaten fans near the ambulance.
The threat was stopped almost an hour after the mass brawl began. During this time, according to the BBC, the Polish police made more than fifty arrests, and this figure clearly did not reach the real number of those responsible for the tragedy.
Photo source: RIA Novosti
Unfortunately, the situation on the city streets was practically no different even after the match, which ended in a 1:1 draw. The fights between fans from Russia and Poland continued almost all night and only stopped after the intervention of the police. The Warsaw clash remains one of the most terrible episodes in the history of the Russian fan movement and one of the main organizational failures in the history of the Euro Cup.
