Russia closes Polish consular agency in Smolensk: Ministry

Poland’s President Andrej Duda.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia said on Friday it was shutting down Poland’s diplomatic mission in the western city of Smolensk, home to important Polish memorial sites.

“Poland’s Ambassador to Russia Krzysztof Krajewski was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry and notified of the closure of Poland’s consular agency in Smolensk,” the Ministry said.

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The consular agency is the representative office for the Polish government in Smolensk.

“Warsaw’s aggressive line towards our country, which has gone beyond all civilised boundaries… is forcing us to implement a set of measures in response,” the Ministry added.

The diplomatic mission opened in 2011, following a plane crash in Smolensk in 2010 that killed 96 Polish officials, including President Lech Kaczynski.

The officials had been heading to a ceremony at the Katyn memorial in a forest near Smolensk, set up in memory of around 22,000 Polish officers killed by the Soviet political police in 1940.

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The consular agency has mainly been tasked with providing consular support to Poles arriving in Smolensk and Katyn.

Poland’s Foreign Ministry in a statement published later on Friday said the Russian decision to close the agency was “another unfriendly and incomprehensible act”.

It said Poland “reserves the right to take appropriate action in response”, adding that the office in Smolensk will close at the end of August.

Relations between Russia and Western countries have deteriorated since the military operation in Ukraine began in February last year, with regular tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and the closure of representative offices.