Poland announced on Saturday that it had seized the building of the Russian high school in Warsaw on Saturday April 28, an act immediately qualified as” illegal “ by Russia, which has promised a response.
“This building will now belong to the Warsaw City Hall”spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry, Lukasz Jasina, told AFP by telephone, stressing that this is a procedure of “referral by bailiff” on behalf of the municipality.
The sequel after the ad
Russia protested in stride. “It is an illegal act, an incursion into a diplomatic site”said its ambassador in Warsaw, Sergei Andreyev, in a video broadcast by the Russian public news agency Ria Novosti. “Of course, a reaction will follow”he stressed, adding that Russia would retaliate under the “principle of reciprocity”.
“The school will continue its activities in other premises of the Russian diplomatic mission, we will ensure a good end of the school year for our children and the organization of exams”said Sergei Andreyev.
A “nest of spies” seized a year ago
A year ago, Warsaw City Hall seized a former Russian diplomatic site, the subject of a legal dispute between Poland and Russia and nicknamed by Warsaw residents the “nest of spies”to offer it to Ukraine which is fighting the Russian forces.
At the time, these were ten-storey buildings built in the 1970s in the south of the capital which had been used in the past by Soviet diplomats and then by the Russian Embassy.
