Łukasz Jasina, the spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry, made the remark in an interview with public broadcaster Polish Radio on Thursday.
He cited examples such as Russia’s “very unpleasant approach to a trip by Polish diplomats and consuls to the western enclave of Kaliningrad” and “very disagreeable gestures towards the Polish consulate in Irkutsk, Siberia.”
Poland expels Russian diplomats, blocks embassy accounts
This comes after Poland last month expelled 45 Russian diplomats it accused of spying, prompting a tit-for-tat response from the Kremlin, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
In addition, Polish prosecutors last month blocked the accounts of the Russian embassy in Warsaw over concerns that the money could be used to finance terrorism, the PAP news agency reported.
The Russian ambassador, Sergiy Andreev, warned last week that “Russia will retaliate against Poland if its embassy in Warsaw stops working because it cannot receive fresh funds from Moscow.”
Russia 'starts to escalate' retaliation
Asked to comment on Andreev’s words, which came in an interview for the Reuters news agency, Jasina said on Thursday: “The Polish embassy in Moscow has been the subject of various retaliatory measures for a long time.”
He elaborated that “for instance, construction work has been under way on all the roads around the embassy for the past two weeks.”
Referring to Andreev’s interview, Jasina told Polish Radio: “I don’t know what retaliatory steps the ambassador, and Russia, could take.”
He said the Russian embassy’s accounts had been blocked by independent prosecutors “over suspicions that these funds could be used for various bad purposes.”
Jasina added: “It’s practically always the Russian side that starts to escalate retaliatory measures."
Thursday is day 57 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters