Polish authorities have seized a recreational residence in the village of Skubianka, outside the country’s capital Warsaw, which the Russian Embassy in the country had been renting since the 1980s.
This was confirmed Wednesday by Poland’s Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment, Edward Syraka, who said that it was employees of the Forestry Department who seized the premises, according to TASS.
Syraka also informed that the authorities are now carrying out an inventory and a technical assessment of the premises. He also acknowledged his willingness to propose «new options» for the use of the site in the future.
The Polish authorities have justified the measure on the grounds that the agreement with the Russian side has expired due to non-payment, a fact that the Russian ambassador in Warsaw, Sergei Andreev, has categorically rejected.
«The text of the agreement contains conditions for its termination, but there is no provision there for non-payment, especially if it is due to force majeure,» said Andreev, who explained that the Russian side has not paid the rent because its bank accounts «are frozen».
«This is not our fault, but a consequence of the illegal actions of the Polish authorities,» the ambassador reproached, referring to Warsaw’s decision to freeze Russia’s bank accounts in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Andreev also informed that the Russian Embassy in Poland will investigate what happened and clarified that at the moment when the Polish authorities confiscated the residence there was no Russian diplomatic employee in the place.
Poland is one of the main Western countries which, on the occasion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has put a stop to Russian influence in the country, and has even removed a large part of the Soviet monuments in the public space.
