On April 29, the Warsaw City Hall took over the Russian secondary school building
Albert Zawada/PAP
The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned Poland’s charge d’affaires to protest against the takeover of a Russian school in Warsaw by the Polish authorities, Reuters has reported, quoting Russian media.
Asked by PAP, Łukasz Jasina, the spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry, confirmed the information.
Jacek Śladewski, who was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Tuesday, did not reveal any information after a 20-minute meeting, Reuters added.
On April 29, the Warsaw City Hall took over the Russian secondary school building. Both the Polish government and Warsaw authorities stated that, in accordance with a court ruling, the school building had been illegally occupied by the Russian embassy in Poland and did not have, according to Jasina, a diplomatic status.
“A bailiff take-over has taken place at the request of the Capital City of Warsaw in full cooperation with the Foreign Ministry based on a court ruling that granted the Polish state the ownership right to the building that for years has been illegally held by the Russian embassy,” Jasina told PAP on Saturday.
Russian press agency, TASS, quoted by the Polish private television Polsat, wrote that Russia has pledged a harsh response to its school takeover and added that the move would bear consequences “for the Polish authorities and Poland’s interests in Russia”.
On Sunday, Pavel Astakhov, a Russian politician, in the daily television programme hosted by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, accused the Polish authorities of violating the Vienna Convention and made a reference to Poland’s ambassador to Russia.
He said that he had waited to hear “whether the Polish ambassador to Russia would be found floating in the Moscow River or not” after an incident when Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, while visiting the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw last year, was doused in red paint by activists protesting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“All threats, especially those made by Russia, should be taken seriously,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in Vilnius on Tuesday.
“But one should never become intimidated,” Morawiecki said, referring to Astakhov statement regarding the Polish ambassador.