Poland to close Russian consulate and counter Moscow’s sabotage attempts

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Russia has no grounds to retaliate against the decision of the Polish authorities to close the Russian consulate in Poznan.

Poland decided to close Russian consulate in Poznan

Sikorski explained that he had decided to close the Russian consulate after consulting with the government. The statement by the Polish Foreign Minister was cited by PAP.

“I made the decision, but the Security Committee of the Council of Ministers also agreed with it and discussed it at the Council of Ministers itself. In practice, this means that there will be no Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Poznan, and diplomats must leave,” Radoslaw Sikorski said.

The Polish foreign minister also said that the Russian side has no grounds for retaliation. “We don’t engage in subversive activities within Russia, but given our knowledge of the other side, it’s likely that we do,” Sikorski stated.

A day earlier, the Polish diplomacy chief announced the decision to close the Russian consulate in Poznan. He said that this move was prompted by the hybrid war waged by Russia against Poland.

Moscow threatens Warsaw with retaliation

Commenting on this decision, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Moscow would respond to the decision of the Polish authorities to close the Russian consulate in Poznan.

Zakharova accused Warsaw of “purposefully doing everything” in recent years to complicate the work of the Russian embassy and Russian consular offices in Poland.

“Undoubtedly, we will not hesitate to respond to this new hostile step taken by the Polish leadership. Warsaw is not winning anything with its thoughtless decisions, but is only doing everything to further drive itself into a dead end,” Zakharova said.

Warsaw’s decision to counter Russia’s sabotage attempts

On Tuesday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced Warsaw’s decision to counter Russia’s sabotage attempts on Polish territory.

Sikorski was commenting on the case of 51-year-old Ukrainian citizen Serhiy S., who was detained earlier this year and accused of collaborating with Russian intelligence and preparing an arson attack on a paint factory in Wroclaw.

The Foreign Minister noted that the accused had confessed that “Russian special services ordered him to commit arson in Wroclaw.”

“We have other similar arsons across Europe, and we know about Russia’s plans for further arsons,” the Polish diplomacy chief said. 

Arrests of Russia-linked saboteurs including a Ukrainian

Serhiy S., a citizen of Ukraine, was detained in the winter of 2024 by the Internal Security Agency. Two days later, a court ordered his temporary arrest.

He planned, as the agency reported, “to set fire to facilities in the city of Wroclaw, which are located in close proximity to infrastructure elements of strategic importance.”

According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Serhiy S. reached an agreement with the prosecutor’s office. The detained Ukrainian man made an agreement on his sentence with Wroclaw’s investigators. However, the Wroclaw District Court rejected the agreement, saying that the three-year prison sentence was too lenient.

Earlier, in September, a court in Lublin sentenced two men, a Ukrainian and a Belarusian, for spying for Russia.

In the spring of 2024, Polish police detained a Polish citizen suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence to plan an assassination attempt on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.