- Moscow sees no reasons for upholding suspension of Russia-Poland border traffic
- Russian envoy: NATO turns Poland, Baltic states into bridgehead for pressure on Moscow
- Poland hopes for change in Russia’s foreign policy after NATO summit
- Russia restricts movement across border with Poland until Warsaw restores traffic regime
- Poland says demolition of Soviet-era monuments in no conflict with agreement with Russia
- Russia hopes that Poland will give up its policy of destroying Russian WWII memorials
WARSAW, August 4. /TASS/. The Polish Foreign Ministry has officially appointed Wlodzimierz Marciniak as Ambassador to Russia, the ministry’s press service said on Thursday.
"(Foreign) Minister Witold Waszczykowski appointed new Polish ambassadors on behalf of the president. Wlodzimierz Marciniak will represent Poland in Moscow, and Jan Pieklo will head the Embassy in Kiev," the press service said.
The Sejm’s (lower house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee approved Marciniak’s candidacy to this post in June 2016. At the Committee’s session, Marciniak said that Polish-Russian relations are at "a relatively low level." One of the main problems in bilateral relations is difference in approaches toward security architecture in Europe, including toward the role of NATO and the United States in the eastern part of the European continent. Marciniak also thinks there are disagreements between Warsaw and Moscow in the energy sphere.
The newly-appointed ambassador says his main task will be to preserve cooperation in political, economic, social and regional spheres. He also thinks it is important "to work on Poland’s image" in the situation with monuments as it often results in "unfair and ungrounded accusations against Poland."
Marciniak is a political analyst, specialist on USSR and Russia, Head of the Department of International Relations at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow, lecturer at the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw. In 2012 he worked as professor at the Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Marciniak also served as a member of the Polish-Russian Group on difficult issues.