MOSCOW: Russia summoned the Polish embassy’s charge d’affaires, Jacek Sladewski, on Tuesday after Warsaw closed a school operated by the Russian embassy. Moscow decried the step as a “cynical” violation of diplomatic principles.
Russia and Poland have historically had tense ties, strained even further since the Ukraine offensive.
Moscow vowed a tough response after Warsaw seized a school building that educates Russian envoys’ children on Saturday.
Poland says the school was run without a legal basis, and its building belonged to Warsaw.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned the Polish ambassador to strongly protest the move.
It said in a statement that Polish authorities put children studying in a school on the street.
The ministry also said that Poland — one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies against Russia — was acting as a springboard for providing weapons to Ukraine.
The Polish envoy was told that his country was pursuing a policy devoid of moral principles with the destruction of Soviet war memorials in Poland and the “falsification” of World War 2 history.
The two nations have long been involved in conflicts over historical memory.
Russia earlier said “nothing good awaits” relations between the neighbours and said Polish officials have “their minds captured by Russophobia”.
Rafal Trzaskowski, Warsaw Mayorsaid, said after the school building’s seizure that it had no diplomatic status and it did not have any immunity.
School building’s history
Warsaw says the school building was nationalized in 1945 before being given by the ruling communists to the Soviet officials.
Polish officials said this operation was carried out “without legal basis”.
The EU and NATO member state Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine and Russia, is now home to up to more than a million Ukrainian refugees who fled Moscow’s aggression
