According to Putin’s spokesman, Poland is leaning too far out of the window. According to the Kremlin, Poland’s new plan borders on “insane”.Bild: IMAGO/SNA / Vladimir Smirnov
International
The mood between Russia and Poland is tense. Poland condemned in the strongest possible terms Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law. And apparently never misses an opportunity to show it.
Poland’s most recent announcement also seems to upset the Kremlin’s stomach. It’s about the city of Kaliningrad.
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From Koenigsberg to Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad was once the German capital of East Prussia. The original name Conigsberg in honor of the Bohemian King Ottokar II evolved into Königsberg in German and Krolewiec in Polish.
In 1946, after the city was captured by the Soviet Union during World War II, it was given the name of Kaliningrad in memory of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin.
Since the independence of the Baltic States in 1991, Kaliningrad has been a Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania. In other words, the Russian city is surrounded by Polish and Lithuanian territory.
Poland is now announcing that it will give the city a different name – to the Kremlin’s annoyance.
Poland does not want “Russification” in the country
Poland only wants to call Kaliningrad by its former Polish name. According to a recommendation by a naming commission, the area should be called Krolewiec in official Polish usage and on maps with immediate effect, the government in Warsaw announced.
Polish Development Minister Waldemar Buda wants to rename the city of Kaliningrad.Image: IMAGO/NurPhoto / Beata Zawrzel
“We don’t want Russification in Poland, so we decided to call Kaliningrad and its region in our own language”, explains Development Minister Waldemar Buda. The Kremlin is apparently raging.
Kremlin is shocked
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disapproves of the change, saying it borders on “insane” what is happening in Poland. “It doesn’t do Poland any good. These aren’t just unfriendly actions: they’re hostile actions,” he says. But Poland apparently has a good reason for changing the name of the city.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov is outraged by Poland’s plan.Image: AP / Alexei Nikolsky
“The naming of a large city near our border after Kalinin, a criminal who was partly responsible for deciding on the mass execution of Polish officials in Katyn in 1940, evokes negative emotions in Poland,” explains Buda. Russia refused to admit the massacre until the 1990s.
In general, the tension between Poland and Russia continues to increase.
Tension between Poland and Russia
The distortions in the Polish-Russian relationship were also expressed recently in the appointment of the Polish chargé d’affaires in Moscow.
This was the Russian Foreign Ministry’s response to the fact that the Russian ambassador Sergei Andreyev in Warsaw was prevented from laying flowers at the Soviet memorial by pro-Ukrainian activists. The occasion was the commemoration day at the end of the Second World War.
The correspondent of the Ukrainian weekly “KyivPost” Jason Jay Smart posted a video on Twitter.
The Russian Foreign Ministry speaks of an “outrageous act”. Poland’s “anti-Russian policy” aims to “distort the history of World War II.”
(with afp)
