Poland to shut Russian consulate as Russia blamed for arson

Poland to shut Russian consulate as Russia blamed for arson

Poland says it has evidence that Russia was behind a fire that destroyed a Warsaw shopping center last year. It said it was closing the Russian Consulate in Krakow in response.https://p.dw.com/p/4uGhI

Poland to shut Russian consulate as Russia blamed for arson

Poland says it has evidence that Russia was behind a fire that destroyed a Warsaw shopping center last year. It said it was closing the Russian Consulate in Krakow in response.

No one was injured in the fire in Warsaw, which Poland now blames on RussiaImage: Attila Husejnow/SOPA/IMAGO

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Monday he was ordering the closure of Russia’s consulate in the southern city of Krakow after evidence showed that Russia had committed an arson attack in the capital, Warsaw, last year in which a shopping center was almost completely destroyed.

The Russian ambassador was also summoned to the Foreign Ministry over the incident.

The move means that Russia now has only one consulate remaining in Poland, in the city of Gdansk, after the consulate in Poznan was closed in response to other acts of sabotage suspected to have been sponsored by Moscow.

It comes as European countries increasingly blame Russia for acts of sabotage as instruments of hybrid warfare alongside the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Warsaw and Moscow, which have always had tense relations, have been even more at loggerheads since Russia’s invasion.

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