WARSAW, October 3. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev has been summoned to the Central European country’s Foreign Ministry over the accession of the two Donbass republics and the Zaporozhye and the Kherson Regions to Russia, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz told TVN24 channel on Monday.
"Right now, relations with Russia are effectively frozen, and no diplomatic contacts are taking place, except for meetings where either I summon Ambassador Andreyev or [the foreign] minister does. Such a meeting will be held today. At 11:00 am (12:00 am Moscow time - TASS), Ambassador Sergey Andreyev will be summoned to the Foreign Ministry over Russia’s actions last week," the senior Polish diplomat explained, referring to the referendums in the Donetsk and the Lugansk People’s Republics as well as the Zaporozhye and the Kherson Regions. Przydacz said Warsaw had summoned Andreyev to protest the accession of the four regions to Russia and to announce it would not recognize that decision.
The diplomat said Poland would not be alone in doing so. "We have agreed with our European colleagues to express this position to [Russian] envoys simultaneously on the same day," he noted.
Asked whether Poland would declare the Russian envoy persona non grata, Przydacz said that would not happen on Monday. "I will not make such an announcement today," he insisted. "We are hashing over such decisions with our allies in the EU and NATO. And if we come to the conclusion jointly with all [our] European and Euro-Atlantic allies that such steps would be necessary and beneficial, then we will take them," the Polish deputy foreign minister emphasized.
"At the current stage, Poland itself is not planning to act on the principle of `we’ll expel and see what comes next.’ If everybody at the European level decides that this is what should be done, that all possible contact with Russian diplomats need to be broken off, then Poland will do so. But what would be out of the question is a situation where Poland would do that, but Germany and France would continue to talk to the Russians, like business as usual," the Polish diplomat maintained. However, he did not rule out that "there might come a time when it would be done regionally."
From September 23 to September 27, the DPR and the LPR as well as the Kherson and the Zaporozhye Regions held referendums where the majority of voters opted to join Russia. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the four regions signed treaties on their accession to Russia.